I've added "word verification" to the comment area to block spammers. My apologies.
Riddle Me This, Batman...
I apologize in advance to Iced Tea Not Coke because she already heard this little diatribe at the softball All-Star game earlier today. She is excused from reading any further.
Most of us are aware that FEMA f’ed up royally during the Hurricane Katrina debacle by not checking identification or verifying loss before giving applicants $2000 debit cards for short-term government aid. In case you didn’t know, $2000 was the maximum amount one could receive. As a result, there was massive fraud that resulted in $1.4B of misallocated funds.
I will preface the rest of this by accepting that those numbers would indicate that 700,000 people applied for money to which they were not entitled. Shame on even one person for stealing from a neighbor who is actually in need…let along 700,000. It’s disgusting when you think about it and the number itself is quite staggering.
Knowing that we will surely have another catastrophe on the same level as Katrina*, this is a problem asking, nay, BEGGING, for a solution. So what do you suppose the think-tank at FEMA came up with?
- A better process that would check I.D. and verify loss?
- A plan to quickly, but temporarily, put the proper resources in place to carry out said process?
- Perhaps even a clause in the application about holding claimants accountable and prosecuting, should fraud be discovered within a certain time after the catastrophe?
- Oh…or maybe fine folks at FEMA could do their jobs?
All good, logical thoughts. Fix the problem.
FEMA’s solution? Decrease the maximum amount of aid from $2000 to $500. Five hundred dollars. They didn’t cut it in half….no, this consortium of nitwits cut it down to 25%. Five hundred dollars.
What the hell is someone going to do with $500 if his/her house is under water? It’ll barely pay for a week in a hotel, plus meals.
Let’s not fix the problem, let’s punish the people who might actually need the help.
The bright side, of course, is should 700,000 people do the same thing after the next disaster, only $350M would be wasted. That’s much better.
* It will happen. If you’ve been unconvinced of global warming affects up ‘til now, check out “An Inconvenient Truth” or the latest issue of National Geographic.
KA-BOOM
What is it about thunderstorms at night that is so frightening? Most of the east coast has been plagued by severe thunderstorms lately. Last night was no exception. I went to Lowe's to purchase a dehumidifier last night and, on the way home, watched quite a spectacular lightening show spread across the sky from one side to the other. I'm guessing the city was getting hit pretty hard at that point. It was one of the coolest displays I've seen in quite some time. Once I got home, I decided to tackle the laundry since we have a pretty full weekend. Whilst in the basement, the lightening and thunder started overhead again. I'll admit, I was a little scared. It was like I'd been transported back to my childhood. Bear in mind that storms do not frighten me, I think they are way cool to watch. In the basement, however, they are completely different. Maybe it was because I don't yet have emergency lights plugged in down there or in the family room. If the power went out, I'm pretty much fumbling in the dark to get back to some lights. While that sounds like a perfectly reasonable excuse, it doesn't explain why my fears were only somewhat alleviated when I was down there later and remembered to take a flashlight....switched on....balanced precariously on top of the dryer. I actually felt like there were eyes watching me. This is the same basement I've done laundry in before...at night. Have we been preconditioned by scary movies to instinctively know that a basement, in the dark, with a thunderstorm raging outside will make all the monsters come alive or cause serial killers donning masks to suddenly appear? Is it because I found a beetle down there the other day that was almost the size of a small dog? Or could it be that I found a dead garden snake in the window well a couple months ago? Who knows how many others are out there, waiting to slither down the walls?I couldn't get out of the basement quick enough; especially the first trip down there without the flashlight and the storm intensifying with each passing second. Why, I kept asking myself, must I hang so many things to dry? It took SO long.I'm seriously considering going down there during the next storm and making myself stand there in the dark, my skin crawling, the mysterious eyes on me, facing my fears. OR....I could just not do laundry again while a storm is bouncing from rooftop to rooftop.
