What I don't understand is why a Katrina victim should be any more deserving of help than some other individual vicitm. What if your house got hit by lightning tonight and burned to the ground? Aren't you just as much in need as someone who got flooded out by Katrina?
Why is it that if there are thousands of victims, we think we should give handouts, but not if it is just one person or one family?
What happened to insurance? Whose fault is it when someone is uninsured? Not the taxpayers'.
This goes beyond Katrina as far as FEMA help. They did the same for Rita victims some four weeks later.
It's not a matter of insurance as this $2,000 wasn't designed to replace that but to assist during the early stages of the disaster when people needed some emergency help. I took a direct hit from Rita and lost approx. 1/2 of my house total destroyed. It took me over four months to get insurance settlements and then finding a contractor, well good luck. I'm still searching for contractors to do work, brick, dry wall, etc. Yes insurance helped with my living expenses but they weren't immediate.
Many of the people didn't abuse the system but some certainly did. They should be punished to the fullest and made examples of so that in future disasters maybe they'll think twice about committing fraud.
Yes you would be in need. But a more proper annalogy would be if your entire city, and all your infrastructure were burned to the ground. All your grocery stores, schools, health clinics, hospitals, businesses(your job),electrical generating plants, gas stations,sewerage lines, water lines,churches and other support structures were also burned to the ground. All your neighbors and family were scattered to the wind. That would be a more appropriate comparrison.
Especially living in an area that has had great warnings for many years about the potential of this occurring. But then they tax me--who can't afford to own a house--to build houses for people who just waste the money away in a floodplain again!