Rod & Betty Jo wrote:
How did this or any tax cut make this disaster worse?.....Do Hurricanes
get power or energy from tax cuts?

I'll try to make this as simple as possible so you don't get confused this
time:

The hurricane was a natural disaster. The levee break was not. The levee
break was a result of deferring necessary maintenance because Federal funds
to maintain the levee were reduced to the point that the levee could not be
properly maintained. The Federal funds were cut because the Federal
government didn't have the money to pay the bills. They didn't have the
money not just because they are spending it elsewhere, but because they cut
taxes despite needing more money. The folks who benefited most from the
ill-timed tax cuts were the very rich. (Judging from your grasp of the
situation, I'm going to guess that you either inherited your money, or
you're so far from the top that you have no perception of just how much they
benefited compared to how you didn't.)

In 2001 FEMA identified the top three possible major disasters. They were a
terrorist attack on New York, an earthquake in San Francisco, and a levee
break after a hurricane in New Orleans. Despite that, funding for levee
maintenance was still cut below minimum levels.

So over four years ago, the President had information warning him that there
was an impending problem. Instead of taking the prudent course, and
increasing funding for the levees to fortify them, funding was cut to a
level that wouldn't even properly maintain what was already in place.

So the cause of the flood was not a hurricane last week. It was a series of
decisions over the last four years to cut funding for the levees that caused
the inevitable flood. When the flood happened may not have been predictable
until 4 or 5 days before it happened, but it's inevitability was not just
predictable -- it was planned. Was it planned out of malice or ignorance?
Your call. Evil or stupid. Given the evidence that was available for *at
least* four years, the fiscal actions taken by the administration were
either evil or stupid. They had the reports and data. They can't claim
ignorance. The best they can do is claim they were too stupid to read or
understand the information they had.

So what was the motivation to not fund the levees? Saving money. It was one
of the many spending cuts that resulted from a tax cut. A tax cut that gave
me a whopping $600, but included provisions that gave so much more (not just
in raw dollars, but proportionally) to those making seven-digit incomes.

So when you look at what the private sector is contributing in post-disaster
relief, are those people contributing as much as the common guy? There are
poor people out there emptying their savings accounts, increasing their
debt, and forgoing groceries so they can contribute. Are any of the 20% of
the richest folks in the nation making that kind of sacrifice? Are their any
that are donating all of their disposable income to post-disaster relief?
Are their any who are even giving the difference between what they would
have paid in taxes pre-cuts and what they're paying now? Or are they just
writing checks that look big to people who have no money, but are pocket
change to them?

The break of the levees was inevitable. The President knew that. He still
put a tax cut for the rich as a higher priority than addressing the levee
problem. So was he evil or stupid in doing so?

--
Warren H.

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Disclaimer: My views reflect those of myself, and not my
employer, my friends, nor (as she often tells me) my wife.
Any resemblance to the views of anybody living or dead is
coincidental. No animals were hurt in the writing of this
response -- unless you count my dog who desperately wants
to go outside now.
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