[quote]Headhunter wrote:
FormerlyTexasGuy wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
I, for one, would like to make a donation to the hurricane victims.
Oh, wait a minute…that means I’m subsidizing people who choose to live in a hurricane zone.
But wait…I’m already doing this anyway. People choose to live in flood plains and in cities that are 9 or 10 feet BELOW sea level…and I get to send my tax dollars to help them rebuild and live…in hurricane zones and flood plains.
How exciting! I always enjoy paying for others who choose to do stupid things.
Hey, if some of you choose to jump off of cliffs, can I pretty please support your families all my life, with my tax dollars too? Thrilled, positively thrilled!!
Most people have already discussed the fallacy of allocating personal responsibility to living on the gulf coast for damages recieved by acts of nature.
The west coast has massive fires and earthquakes, the east coast freezes and suffers through blizzards, the midwest is prone to flooding and tornadoes…
There isn’t technically a “safe” place to live until nature can be controlled. And then you still have the human element to deal with.
Anyways, I do see your point in self responsibility. Most people are not absorbing your tax dollars. I recieved property damage due to the hurricane and have private insurance that is taking care of it. This is the case for most hurricane victims. Insurance is required of home owners, in flood zones flood insurance is required.
There are instances where FEMA is stepping in to deliver water and food (if you consider MRE’s food)to people who have been displaced until insurance can do anything, but these people are not social security abusing fuck wits. And stores that would typically serve them closed responsibly so employees could stay safe. The victims, for the most part, are responsible home owners caught in a bad situation with no where to go but charity and FEMA until the services they purchased can file and businesses re-open to accept their dollars.
Typically I agree with your stance on tax subsidies, but natural disasters go above and beyond the realm of personal responsibility. Except for the people who choose to stay in mandatory evac zones at least, but that is a different conversation.
Furthermore, Texas has one of the strongest economies in the country right now due to it’s oil industry, HQ’d in Houston. The city is growing quickly due to the job market though it does happen to be on the gulf coast. I would argue people here are more responsible for following money/security than they are staying in a two bit midwestern town, crossing their fingers in hopes of avoiding floods and tornadoes while working at the mom and pop diner living off of food stamps because they don’t realize how big the world outside of sheepfuck midwest is and it scares them. Those people are the drain on society that should be cut off. It would do them good. Spur them on to bigger things.
Keeping productive people buried under debt isn’t the way to carry on. Those people need to rebound and continue carrying the economy asap as they do 99% of the time anyways.
Watch out! X and his cronies will be after you for posting something intelligent like this!
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I’m essentially saying the same things they are, just better. The gov’t isn’t taking that huge a role, merely facilitating basic survival until the private system can kick in.
THe whole “Texas ate my tax dollars” stance is chicken little-ish. Hell, Texas probably pays more corporate tax in a day than the entire country absorbs in a year due to the world’s largest industry being HQ’d here anyways. Corporate taxes are beastly.
If anything, we are re-claiming what we have paid anyways. TOns of people live, work and pay taxes here. Without quantifiying where each FEMA dollar comes from and when, it’s impossible to say if any of yours even reached us.