 |
| |
|
|
Darkstar
|
 |
Huntsville, AL, USA
May 1999
time: 23:37
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DanS
I view this as nothing more than Bush and the Republicans in the congress buying votes with my tax money. They will do anything with my tax money so that the congress stays in GOP hands come next November. The Northeast and Western US should be up in arms over this.
Here's the deal as I see it. Our society is set up so that a community pays its own way.
By the federal government spending such huge sums of money on recovery from Katrina, the federal government is offering insurance from these 30-year catastrophic storms and is therefore potentially taking away money from areas that are economically viable and putting it into areas that aren't economically viable (i.e., a big rat hole). But more than that, the federal government is short-circuiting the investment choices of the local communities. The community will not "own" the infrastructure in their communities, but rather the federal government will. Over time, that means everybody deals with a faceless Washington, D.C. bureaucracy to get stuff done in their communities, rather than looking after themselves.
|
A few points:
1) Government always spends *our* money to buy themselves votes. Always have, always will.
2) The Port of New Orleans benefits the vast majority of America. It's the #4 port in the world. The entirety of the continental states need that port.
3) DC loves to own everything around you. That's their job... to spread their power and influence.
4) We, the people, demand that our Federal Government do this. We've made it a law. Our government is compelled by our laws to step in and shoulder the costs. This might be dumb on our part (ie, why should people in Michigan pay for homes destroyed by hurricanes in Florida?), but it is what *we* have decided. You should start educating your fellow citizenry how their tax money is subsidizing people living in high risk areas (flood, storm, tornado, earthquake, etc etc etc).
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Darkstar
|
|
Huntsville, AL, USA
May 1999
time: 23:37
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DanS
The proposition should rise or fall on its own merits.
As this storm demonstrates, they didn't spend the necessary money in the first place. Why would the federal government spend money on something that the locals didn't think was sufficiently worthwhile in the first place? |
Economics by themselves guarantees that the Port of New Orleans will be rebuilt as it is needed. However, as that is so important to the rest of our country (consider that 1/4 of all food, and 1/2 of all our energy needs such as GAS and HEATING OIL go through that port), that's why Bush is just dumping paper money on it.
You do realize that 10% of our refineries are there, right? That guarantees that we'd rebuild the area, just by itself. Why? Because we cannot build a single refinery in the States due to the current environmental protection in place. But we can rebuild old ones.
The Port of NO is too darn important to all the US. Now, we don't need all the rest remanants of Plantation Time down there. But, considering this is LA we are talking about, we will likely get a good bit of that back as well. Oh well. Can't get everything...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
mrmitchell
|
|
quote:
I heard recently that if all the pork is cut of the last passed Transportation, Farm, and Energy bills, that would more then cover all the funds that the government/Bush says will be sent/needed. |
What "pork" are you saying we cut?
Isn't that what the entire transportation bill is? Money doled out to states to do local projects? (Plus a couple million here and there for AMTRAK, etc...no one cares about that anyway)
Why shouldn't states and citizens get money for local projects if they are paying taxes? Those millions here and there mean a huge amount to individual cities.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
mrmitchell
|
|
In fact we need more money...
quote:
Federal Government Sends Some, But Not Enough, Money to Arkansas
Little Rock (AP) - Federal money is starting to funnel into Arkansas to help it pay for the highest concentration of refugees in the country and the second most overall, but $136,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for shelters and other assistance lags well behind other states bordering Louisiana and Mississippi.
Arkansas also will not receive $30 million dollars it requested from the Labor Department to create jobs for displaced hurricane victims, and state and federal officials are not pleased. Governor Huckabee expressed disappointment that Texas, the state that received the most refugees, received $75 million while Arkansas, with the second highest refugee count per capita,got nothing.
Senator Blanche Lincoln says it is inexcusable that Arkansas was not recognized by the administration as one of the key states housing Hurricane Katrina evacuees. The governor and Senator Mark Pryor will meet Friday over Arkansas aid for hurricane victims. |
We are housing thousands and thousands of refugees. This is a ridiculous amount of money. What are the feds thinking???
EDIT: Additional info
Arkansas has 75,000 refugees
And $0 for job assistance for those refugees
And as of now 0 promises from the feds that we will be reimbursed for doing Medicaid, food stamps, etc. for evacuees
quote:
LITTLE ROCK, AR - State and federal officials are dismayed that the federal Labor Department gave millions of dollars to Texas and the three states hit by Hurricane Katrina to help find jobs for displaced workers, but did not give any to Arkansas.
Senator Blanche Lincoln said the Labor Department didn't consider how it was distributing the money and ran out of funds before Arkansas could get any help. Governor Mike Huckabee was also disappointed that his state continues to be overlooked for its role in relief efforts by the federal agencies involved.
Huckabee has already expressed his displeasure with FEMA, which didn't seem to know that Arkansas had taken in 75,000 refugees, the second-most of any state. State officials are also worried that they won't be reimbursed for providing state-administered benefits like Medicaid or food stamps to the victims.
Senator Mark Pryor said President Bush missed a golden opportunity in his address to the nation last night to bring Democrats and Republicans together over the tragedy. He said political games are still being played over who is to blame for a poor emergency response.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
|
Last edited by mrmitchell on 17-09-2005 at 09:05
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Darkstar
|
|
Huntsville, AL, USA
May 1999
time: 23:37
|
|
Well, how about a $100 million bridge in Alaska to an island of 75 people, in which the people don't want the bridge? That's a good start. The islanders don't want the bridge, so why waste the money doing it?
A lot of the local projects aren't thing like building a loop around a metro. It's things like widening the road that runs to the Kennedy private compound outside a national park, so that the Kennedy clan can more easily drive their Winnebagos or their big SUVS towing their 35' boat back to their private home surrounded by the national park. Should the tax payers really be paying for that? Or would that money do better going to the Gulf?
There's items in there to pave lumbering paths. Why should the tax payers pay money to help the lumbering companies make more money off of federal land? Let the companies pay for that.
Then there's the snowmobile trail being cut through Yellowstone to let the Senator there more easily reach his vacation home. He can wait a couple of years for that, right? Better to spend that money helping to fix important infrastructure.
There's tons of things like that in most of these things. Indeed, Energy bill has some unassociated dredging work in it for the NO area! Put that money towards something people will use, rather then being a project to make deep water fish more easily fished from Blanko's cousin's house.
Remember, Congress can always delay those personal pork projects for a few years. Congress would just pass those personal porking later anyways. They always do.
I'm not against stopping all pork (although the pet projects that are only to bennie Congress and its own family, that I'd like to see stopped entirely). I think we can certainly delay the normal porking to fund what we need to for the Gulf this year.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
shawnmmcc
|
|
DanS - this is scary, but I am agreeing with you on this one. Not only from the economic standpoint, which some other posters have challenged with valid though different viewpoints. From a purely scientific standpoint.
I know some of this has been posted in other threads. Some of it hasn't. The environmental degredation of the Mississippi delta makes rebuilding New Orleans as a population center madness. One acre of the delta disappears every 24 minutes, roughly 25-30 square miles a year. Each mile that is lost makes the city more vulnerable. Add in the damn Nutria, a introduced South American rodent that is helping destroy the wetlands and that we have not been able to control - and it's a fool's errand.
Someone just completed a study that over the last ten or so years while the worldwide number of hurricanes have not increased - the number of category 4 and 5 ones has doubled. That makes rebuidling insane. A seperate analysis I heard said that for every something like $2 of damage due to global warming - coastal development, i.e. building where the hurricane will destroy it, causes $20-60 of damage. I wish I had the cite, I'm know I'm off but I am in the general vicinity. My folks come from the White and Wabash River Basins. NOBODY in my family buys a house that is in a flat area along a river - we know it's STUPID.
The same applies for coastal development. It's economically foolish, scientifically stupid, and damages the environment (both due to attempts to protect the development as well as due to the actual building itself). That's lose - lose - lose. DanS is correct on this one, and wishing it away with 200 billion dollars is only pissing money away in a toilet. Like trying to build a western-style democracy in a land where Sharia is revered (trying reading the basics of Sharia before you disagree). Wishful thinking only wastes money.
edited to clarify a sentence
Last edited by shawnmmcc on 17-09-2005 at 12:50
|
|
| |
|
|
|
shawnmmcc
|
|
Ted - they were going to build a bypass canal someday, tentatively in the next decade that might have helped. They haven't even started on it yet except studies... Plus, the Nutria are stripping out the marsh grass, and unless something can be done about even that might not save the delta. Google them and you will so how hideous a problem they have become.
DanS has made a very succinct point. However, he does not go far enough. As I've mentioned in the past, the rest of Florida and it's either Mississippi or Alabama are forced to pay for the insurance on people's coastal developement (it's a "surcharge" everybody pays). So of course they build there because they get this beautiful scenery, cool breezes, and they don't need to worry about the fact that the life expectency of the structure is well under 50 years.
In the past, for example at Martha's Vineyard, people built bungalows on the beach. Up there one primary use was as summertime retreats for the rich. The rich understood that the vagaries of weather could destroy these structures, and thus built something they could afford to have destroyed by the weather. You also had regular fishermen and those working the docks also building on the coast, just like in most American cities the poor ended up shunted into the less desirable, i.e. less safe areas.
In addition these same coastal (and riverfront) areas that have been developed have often had to be drained of water to make them suit for building. Fetid swamps. The problem is that the aforementioned swamps are the nurseries for much of our aquatic life, and you can see another reason fisheries are on the wane - we both overharvest the adult fish while polluting their environment and destroying their nurseries. I don't believe that it take rocket science to predict the result.
Finally, with the property rights movement, so-called, etc. you are not going to see any kind of sanity in the area of coastal development anytime soon. One coworker who is much closer to Drake than to you or I stated that he would impose a simple rule - the federal goverment only pays for one rebuild, ever. After that you get your own insurance privately. If you cannot find an insurance company that will "affordably" insure you, maybe you should get the message. That is a different way of phrasing DanS message, and he is correct IMHO. Though as I noted other posters correctly made some different arguments economically. The problem is that the science, with warming of the Gulf Waters, and the deterioration of the Delta pretty much gives DanS economics the win.
|
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:37.
Apolyton Time is 00:37. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
17-09-2005 00:36
Did I miss something?
|