A city scene from New Orleans with the Superdome in the fore ground. It is devastating to see the human, physical, and environmental damage that has been done to these three states coastal regions as a result of the hurricane. It is hard to imagine how the government(s) will be able to afford to rebuild these communities any time soon. What will happen to the hundreds of thousands of people who now have no home, no job, and little future? The states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama have very low tax bases so they won't have many resources to apply. The federal government, already spending over $4 billion a month on the Iraq war, is now in fiscal crisis. How will the nation be able to help these people? What will happen?
5 comments:
What will happen to the hundreds of thousands of people who now have no home, no job, and little future?
You see devastation, I see opportunity. Tens of thousands of jobs are going to open up, rebuilding the infrastructure, indeed entire towns.
Tens of thousands more can simply move elsewhere and start over. This is America - opportunity awaits. The regions loss is our gain - the best and brightest will make something of themselves, or enrich their new communities.
What will happen to the hundreds of thousands of people who now have no home, no job, and little future?
Details, please. Which crisis?
How will the nation be able to help these people?
Think of the children! See above for answers.
What will happen?
Life will go on - it always does.
I am a victim of cut and paste. Let me try that again.
he federal government, already spending over $4 billion a month on the Iraq war, is now in fiscal crisis
Details, please. Which crisis?
Have some faith in your fellow human beings.
Of course, Bruce sees the federal government as the only possible solution to the problem. Socialists think that way; the all powerful state and all. This is America, and America still has enough determined individuals left to take on this horrible situation. I"ll bet you were among those complaining about the US government's contribution to the recent tsunami relief, of course ignoring the fact that private contributions from individual Americans totaled more than the contributions of any of the countries involved many times over. Luckily we have not been softened by the nanny state philosophy to the point where we can no longer take care of ourselves.
I've sent in my contribution to aid the victims of this disaster; have you Bruce? Or are you just going to use it as a tool to bludgeon the Bush administration with?
course ignoring the fact that private contributions from individual Americans totaled more than the contributions of any of the countries involved many times over. Luckily we have not been softened by the nanny state philosophy to the point where we can no longer take care of ourselves.
According to this Reuters story, US private donations totalled nearly $1.5 billion dollars as of August 8th.
That's a lot of money, and a substantial portion of the overall 12 billion pledged, but it isn't 'many times' the private contributions of 'any' other country. The Germans privately pledged $643 million, for example, and the British $663 million.
Furthermore, if your point about the 'nanny state' mentality is to hold, you'll have to explain why the 9.0 million socialist Swedes privately offered $ 137 million dollars in tsunami relief. If they'd been giving at the per capita rate of the US (about $5/person*295 million=$1.5 billion), we'd expect them to have given only $45 million, but they tripled that amount. Again, 80 million Germans gave almost $8 per kopf. Unless I'm reading the Reuters figures incorrectly, I don't think the evidence supports your conclusion that 'unsoftened Americans' were more generous than people living in other countries under other, more nannified systems.
Americans were undoubtedly generous, but not somehow off the international scale of generosity.
And we could all, by the way, stand to be much more generous (or should I say simply 'just') than we are.
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