1. LONG BEACH TOWNSHIP, N.J. -Some environmentalists say New Jersey should consider not rebuilding everything lost to Superstorm Sandy.
He and other shoreline advocates say officials should consider restricting development to reduce the harm storms can do. They suggest relocating homes and businesses farther from the ocean, building more seawalls and keeping sand dunes high."
Battered NJ agonizes over whether to rebuild shore - DC Breaking Local News Weather Sports FOX 5 WTTG
How much is the taxpayer on the hook for??
And why??
2. If you want to really make your blood boil, check out the transfer payments to owners of beachfront properties. Between 1979 and 2005, Alabamas Dauphin Island was hammered six times by hurricanes, which destroyed some five hundred pricey vacation home and rental properties. Owners kept rebuilding, and the government paid more than $21 million in insurance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/10/10/AR2005101001465.html
a. The flood program pays every claim, doesnt raise premiums after multiple claims, and promises to keep doing so.
b. A USA TODAY review of FEMA records found that the owners of 19,600 homes and commercial buildings worth $25,000 or more have collected insurance payments that exceed the value of their property. The records exclude property addresses. In Fairhope, Ala., the owner of a $153,000 house has received $2.3 million in claims. A $116,000 Houston home has received $1.6 million. The payments are for damage to homes and what's inside .USA TODAY also found that the owners of 370,000 second homes and rental houses get huge insurance discounts. Wealthy resort areas such as Hilton Head Island, S.C., and Longboat Key, Naples and Sanibel, Fla., have some of the largest numbers of second homes and rentals getting the discounts. USATODAY.com
3. 'In 1887,... several counties in Texas faced a long drought and some farmers lost their crops. Texas politicians helped cajole Congress into granting $10,000 worth of free seeds for these distressed farmers in Texas.
After the bill passed the Senate and House, [President Grover] Cleveland vetoed it, saying, 'I can find no warrant for such an appropriating in the Constitution,' Cleveland said. Such aid would 'destroy the partitions between proper subjects of Federal and local care and regulation.'
He added, 'Federal aid, in such cases, encourages the expectations of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character.'" Cleveland believed the American people would not abandon its fellow citizens in the Lone Star state. ...Cleveland's response, "the friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune."
a. Cleveland could not be more accurate in his predictions. People not only gave, but did so at a level beyond the imagination of the Texas farmers and the politicians who represented them. Fellow Americans from all over the country gave gifts exceeding $100,000. That amount was more than ten times the amount Congress had tried to take from the taxpayers. The Founding Fathers never saw a "charity" role for government, that perspective was validated in both word and deed by Cleveland's courageous veto and his belief in the American people.
Hurricane Sandy, presidential candidates, and Grover Cleveland
He and other shoreline advocates say officials should consider restricting development to reduce the harm storms can do. They suggest relocating homes and businesses farther from the ocean, building more seawalls and keeping sand dunes high."
Battered NJ agonizes over whether to rebuild shore - DC Breaking Local News Weather Sports FOX 5 WTTG
How much is the taxpayer on the hook for??
And why??
2. If you want to really make your blood boil, check out the transfer payments to owners of beachfront properties. Between 1979 and 2005, Alabamas Dauphin Island was hammered six times by hurricanes, which destroyed some five hundred pricey vacation home and rental properties. Owners kept rebuilding, and the government paid more than $21 million in insurance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/10/10/AR2005101001465.html
a. The flood program pays every claim, doesnt raise premiums after multiple claims, and promises to keep doing so.
b. A USA TODAY review of FEMA records found that the owners of 19,600 homes and commercial buildings worth $25,000 or more have collected insurance payments that exceed the value of their property. The records exclude property addresses. In Fairhope, Ala., the owner of a $153,000 house has received $2.3 million in claims. A $116,000 Houston home has received $1.6 million. The payments are for damage to homes and what's inside .USA TODAY also found that the owners of 370,000 second homes and rental houses get huge insurance discounts. Wealthy resort areas such as Hilton Head Island, S.C., and Longboat Key, Naples and Sanibel, Fla., have some of the largest numbers of second homes and rentals getting the discounts. USATODAY.com
3. 'In 1887,... several counties in Texas faced a long drought and some farmers lost their crops. Texas politicians helped cajole Congress into granting $10,000 worth of free seeds for these distressed farmers in Texas.
After the bill passed the Senate and House, [President Grover] Cleveland vetoed it, saying, 'I can find no warrant for such an appropriating in the Constitution,' Cleveland said. Such aid would 'destroy the partitions between proper subjects of Federal and local care and regulation.'
He added, 'Federal aid, in such cases, encourages the expectations of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character.'" Cleveland believed the American people would not abandon its fellow citizens in the Lone Star state. ...Cleveland's response, "the friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune."
a. Cleveland could not be more accurate in his predictions. People not only gave, but did so at a level beyond the imagination of the Texas farmers and the politicians who represented them. Fellow Americans from all over the country gave gifts exceeding $100,000. That amount was more than ten times the amount Congress had tried to take from the taxpayers. The Founding Fathers never saw a "charity" role for government, that perspective was validated in both word and deed by Cleveland's courageous veto and his belief in the American people.
Hurricane Sandy, presidential candidates, and Grover Cleveland
