I agree with the sentiment. The amount of money wasted is obscene.
This outrage should have ended a year ago. The scum in La. reaches from the police dept to the mayor and all the way to the state house. The corruption is complete and cannot be avoided. This money is going right down a rat hole.
Now there's a conservative. Too bad there's so few of them left.
-- Throwing more good money after bad is something all nations do when confronted with the SAME problem that persists...is STILL moral in its solution and people SCREAM and SCREECH for a solution which is NOT moral.
Examples: HIV/AIDS, out-of-wedlock births, rampant divorce, drug addiction, homelessness, failing mortgages, alcoholism, child abuse, pornography, prostitution. The list goes on and on and on.
We humans haven't changed ONE IOTA over the millenia. The problems that persist are still basically moral.
Katrina spending goes down the sewer into corrupt pockets. That is what led to the failed dams, chaos in the rescue missions and failure in the recovery programs.
-- Saturday morning armchair quarterbacking here.
Finally, a voice of sanity in the insane effort to turn the senseless rebuilding of another city below sea level. The whole bailout has turned into another giant welfare pit.
I love this guy. It’s too bad that the GOP water carriers in Washington, on the radio, and here on FR have marginalized Tancredo so badly that he can never be elected president.
With the amount of money that has been spent, NO should have been re-built TWICE. Yet still, we are treated to these weepy “news” specials about how bad everything still is down there and how “America doesn’t care”. Frankly, I’m over it.
The same people doing the most whining are the same ones who have done NOTHING to help themselves. I do NOT support re-building the 9th ward- leave it to the sea. Shut off the tax funded gravy train and those who are still collecting Katrina money while living in other states (we have quite a few in the Atlanta area) need to be kicked to the curb and told to get a job.
Once that is done, it’s time that “Chocolate Ray” and Blanco are investigated. That money has gone SOMEWHERE and even a couple of dopes like these can’t “lose” it ALL.
I’m not a Tancredo-for-prez supporter, but I SURE DO like this kind of spending-straight-talk.
If we could only transfer some of the enthusiam for the FT boondoggle and apply it to the clear-and-present dangers like the Katrina Cash Toss.
If we keep spending money like this and encouraging reliance on the fedgov, then we’ll have the United Socialist States of America (USSA) so quick that we’ll WISH we had the NAU instead! =/
for the 1994 earthquake, Fema came to my house.
To replace a broken window, repair a cracked tile, and lift the house up and put it back on the foundation,
THEY WROTE ME A CHECK FOR $200.00.
HMMM, well I wasn’t given enough money for those repairs, but... I’m sure the katarina victims got more for their whoes than I did.
The other thing is, as I recently heard Raymond Arroyo of EWTN (native New Orleans resident) say: they are throwing good money after bad, becuase they are rebuilding in parts of the city which are not sustainable, because they are going to be flooded again.
Won't happen! That's the Liberal Plantation down there. Just fill that rat hole with gasoline and torch it...
What is the point in rebuilding NO? It’s smack in the middle of the Gulf Coast and is already below sea level. According to Algore sea level is going to rise one foot every decade from now on. Even without another hurricane NO is doomed.
End it? Heck, we need to get a refund from the freeloaders.
This just in from the U.S. Department of the Treasury website… It explains WHY there was very little federal financial help for the San Francisco Earthquake and the Chicago Fire or the Galveston Hurricane. All of the money back in those times was either in the individuals hands or his local governments hands.
“The need for Federal revenue declined sharply after the war and most taxes were repealed. By 1868, the main source of Government revenue derived from liquor and tobacco taxes. The income tax was abolished in 1872. From 1868 to 1913, almost 90 percent of all revenue was collected from the remaining excises.
Under the Constitution, Congress could impose direct taxes only if they were levied in proportion to each State's population. Thus, when a flat rate Federal income tax was enacted in 1894, it was quickly challenged and in 1895 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional because it was a direct tax not apportioned according to the population of each state.
Lacking the revenue from an income tax and with all other forms of internal taxes facing stiff resistance, from 1896 until 1910 the Federal government relied heavily on high tariffs for its revenues.”
Chicago, Galveston, and San Francisco were devastated and rebuilt. Does anyone really think that they were rebuilt free of charge? The money by and large came from the locals who lived there because it was the locals who lived there who had the money. Tancredo seems to not understand that the Federal government back then was not where the money was, but conveniently leaves this out of his diatribe. If the federal government wishes to return to those good old days when my money was MINE, then lets go with it. Don’t hold your breath waiting for this to happen.
"'No, Colonel, there's no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings in Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some suffers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?
"Well, my friend, I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.'
" 'It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the govment ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any thing and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief: There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the suffers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of men in and around Washington who could have given 520,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditable; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution. the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution. So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch it's power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you..'
Some may care to read the entire speech, Not Yours to Give! by Davy Crockett
True. We should simply abolish FEMA. Socialized charity is even less effective than socialism in general. FEMA provides a great excuse for people to do nothing - “we’re waiting on FEMA.”