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Subscribe to RSSThe three states hardest hit by super-storm Sandy in October are requesting $80 billion in emergency funding, raising long-term questions about the federal government’s planning for seemingly ever-more expensive disaster spending.
In his press briefing Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters, “I met with Gov. (Andrew) Cuomo (of New York) yesterday; I understand Gov. (Chris) Christie (of New Jersey) is coming today or tomorrow.” Reid said he met with a White House aide Tuesday morning on the emergency spending and predicted that Congress would get a formal spending request “in the next 48 hours” from the White House.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. gestures as he speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012, following a Democratic strategy session. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
On Tuesday Christie requested 100 percent federal reimbursement, instead of the normal 75 percent, for his state’s costs in the aftermath of Sandy. In a letter to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate, Christie said, “The financial burden and economic hardship still confronted by our state and communities threatens the ability to continue debris removal operations at the existing (75 percent) cost-share ratio.”
On Wednesday senators from the three states — New York, New Jersey and Connecticut — will make their case for emergency funds before a Senate Appropriations Committee panel headed by a senator who knows firsthand about the effects of a catastrophic weather event: Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, the federal government eventually spent about $120 billion.
Landrieu said in an interview Tuesday that if Congress does start spending $80 billion every few years on disaster recovery, “it really throws the (spending) averages off and we’re going to have a very serious conversation about how to go forward in the next decade. We’re going to take a good look at that, but right now our job is to get help to the Northeast and that’s what we’re going to do.”
If the United States has entered an era in which mega-storms, perhaps related to climate change, are becoming the “new normal,” it will create new spending pressures at a time when federal revenues every year are falling roughly $1 trillion short of outlays. If you factor in a growing population and development in coastal areas, then storm damage is likely to become even more expensive over time.
Congress and Obama right now are working hard to figure out how to undo the spending cuts that both sides agreed to last year in the Budget Control Act. So adding another $80 billion every few years might not be so strange. It might just be another object lesson in the unpredictability and perhaps the unreality of the federal budget process.
Even with no emergency spending on disaster relief, the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that spending between this year and 2023 will increase by 55 percent. Demographic changes – ever-growing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security spending on the aging Baby Boomers – could be colliding with climate change, leaving a very heavy burden on younger workers.
A senator whose state was hit by the catastrophic Joplin tornado in 2011, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said Tuesday, “You can’t plan for every disaster, but you can plan for a reasonable amount of annual disaster spending. And the other thing you can do is more clearly evaluate when something reaches the federal disaster level, when something is too big to be handled by a community and the state that community is in.”
He added, “One of the things we’ve failed to do in recent years is to really carefully evaluate the level of disaster. We haven’t increased the disaster criteria in a couple of decades.”
Blunt said a Government Accountability Office report he requested last year found that the federal government declares a lot more events disasters than it did in past decades “so that by the time you get to a real disaster the money is gone.”
The GAO report said that “The growing number of disaster declarations — a record 98 in fiscal year 2011 compared with 65 in 2004 — has contributed to increased federal disaster costs.” That was in part due to the FEMA standard (a per capita damage indicator) having remained unchanged since 1986, not reflecting the rise in per capita personal income since 1986.
In a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing Wednesday on how FEMA is responding to Sandy and how it could more effectively react to future catastrophes, committee member Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., whose district includes lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn that were devastated by Sandy’s storm surge, said that the city and the state of New York “do not have billions of dollars sitting in their coffers in advance to fund repairs, and FEMA reimbursement is slow and cumbersome. In fact, New York still is waiting for payment for Hurricane Irene (from August of 2011). And I’m sure many of my colleagues have had similar experiences in their states.”
Nadler and other congressional Democrats argue that the emergency money for Sandy should be spent without Congress making spending cuts elsewhere to offset the new outlays. Waiting for Congress to come up with offsetting cuts, he said, would simply get in the way of “our most important job — protecting our citizens when calamity strikes.”
The $80 billion should be spent, Nadler said, in a way that protects against future storms “and we have every reason to believe that future storms will threaten us again — and soon.”
At the House hearing, Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., was the first committee member to raise the topic of what she called “the elephant in the room: global climate change.”
In an interview outside the hearing, Edwards told NBCNews.com, “I do think we have to look seriously at climate change when we think about the way we need to build our infrastructure and to mitigate possible damage from future storms.” She said some protective infrastructure spending today could avert higher post-catastrophe costs in the future.
Edwards did not give a cost estimate for disaster-resistant infrastructure spending. “I don’t think we’ve even begun to explore the kinds of mitigation efforts we need all along our coastline in areas of very dense population where the impact when a disaster happens is tremendous.”
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Yeah right. We are talking about the Greedy One Percent party here. If I was pres I would start with that and let them work it down. So called entitlements, especially SS don't touch.
Hal Burton Love your name all though I hope your middle initial is I. So I can ask you (What are you Fracking doing here).
To boring here! Bye
Unfortunately, this is just the very beginning, in fact, it is just a small drop in a very large bucket, compared to what is coming down the line, and doubly so for the worst 'per capita' offending nations when it comes to global warming. But I have been telling everyone this for years now, and unfortunately most people just couldn't care less. Have fun with your program "End Times", everyone! - Rick Carter
(Our human world has been under covert biocybernetic warfare attack for thousands of years now, primarily in the form of these corrupt ET designed and installed terminal religious belief systems known as the Abrahamic religions. But unfortunately, even though I am former U.S. Special Forces, 6th Group (Psyops) & 5th Group, top "Go Team", Ft. Bragg, N.C., ETS from active duty 1972, no one still wants to listen to me before it is too late to save our precious human race from a fate worse than death (i.e., future extinction) at the hands of these outside offensive totalitarian ETs. And unfortunately, the U.S.
government, from the White House on down, is FOREVER determined to, ABSOLUTELY, TOTALLY, AND COMPLETELY DISCREDIT ME (Rick Carter) FOREVERMORE !!! So just bend over, and everyone politely kiss your "you know what" FOREVER GOODBYE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I truly did my best to overcome these MULTI-BILLLION DOLLAR & MULTI-TRILLION DOLLAR obstacles to an enlightened electorate in support of democracy !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOODBYE & GOOD LUCK, EVERYONE, because you are ALL ARE DEFINITELY GOING TO NEED IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Rick Carter (E-5/"Buck" SGT. (OR-5)
(Please keep in mind that I was also 91B4S (primary MOS), X-trained in weapons, communications & engineers, snow, mountain, scuba (including "closed circuit", & airborne & (gee, I already forgot just off the top of my head the rest of it, but I will fill you all in later), unfortunately I am 'apparently' the only honorable person in the entire U.S. military and civilian government, when it comes to this vital (even EXTREMELY GRAVE ISSUE of OUTSIDE OFFENSIVE TOTALITARIAN ETs WHO THREATEN OUR WORLD ("The Highest National & World Security Issue"), who have been hoping for thousands of Earth years now to eventually steal and annex our extremely valuable celestial real estate, while once more masquerading as Divinity toward mankind, this time as the RETURNING CHRIST OR MESSIAH !!! DON'T EVER SAY I DIDN'T TRY TO TELL THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE "The Truth" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Rick Carter (now & forevermore!!!)
(Trust me, I just cut my own throat from 'ear to ear', in lieu of these outside FGPs or UFPs extracting me. Oh, well, just have fun, everyone, even if it is (initially) at my own expense! (Don't worry, you all will DEFINITELY FOLLOW me to the grave, if these FGPs and UFPs don't finally stand up and be counted !!!)) - RC
Oh blah, blah, blah, we are all doomed, blah, blah, ya sure, whatever LOL LOL
So now we know the truth. It's storms that have created trillions of dollars of deficits.
What's a good Dem Administration to do? We've got to help these storm victims!
Yep, trillions!
p.s. I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.
If the government would stop over spending, you know, wars? MIght have enough money to take care of our nation, and they always rely on the people to bail them out, mabey they should stop bailing out banks? Government officials are paid too much for doing nothing. Oh what America has become......
Hey Alaska Girl - is there anything out there in your world except the two unfunded wars? LOL
If you live in high risk area's for storms You should be paying more, not the entire nation. This should go strictly towards a states issue and not a federal.
ah just print more fake counterfiet money. it will be all good....
I'm glad we are not broke because cleaning up this mess is going to be expensive - O Wait we are broke. Maybe we will have to raise taxes on the top 4% now.
Looks like Uncle Sam is delinquent on his support payments.
here is a great idea
take away the pay and benefits of congress if they do not agree on a budget. Why pay for a service that is not provided. would you have a job if you did not show up for work or perform your duties you were hired for. what makes congress so special.
This is crazy. Taxpayers should not be expected to pay for these natural disasters, that's what insurance is for. You don't have insurance? Well then, you gambled and you lost. To put 80-120 trillion dollars into perspective, that is the same amount of money that universal health care would cost for everyone in the US for a year. I'd much rather we coughed up that kind of money to make sure everyone had health insurance. These idiots that build homes and businesses in flood plains and coastal areas have no sympathy from me.
THEY have sold the ENTIRE NATION OUT, NOT JUST ME! You are all dead, we are all dead, if you don't start listening to me, RIGHT NOW !!! THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE IS DEAD, if you all don't start listening to me RIGHT NOW !!! - RC
Oh blah, blah, blah, more doom and gloom, blah, blah ya sure, whatever LOL LOL
census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c (&) 0004 (.html)
Any time that the government talks about not being able to afford this or that for it's OWN citizens, then I think foreign aid should be examined....
Why in hell do we have to pay for there storm damage?I screw them.
This is America.
You know the place founded on Christian values.
When in the hell are the people who want to live on the waterfront going to start paying the real price of insurance and not the taxpayer subsidized bs the feds provide? When are the states on the coasts going to start ponying up emergency funds for these known weather events? What part of "The feds are broke" don't people understand? Why is every weather event a federal disaster?
Pigotry, you and all the people that blame everything on the Republicans are out to lunch. I guess in you mind Democrats walk on water and are perfect. What a bunch of BS. The big difference between Democrats and Republicans is the Democrats implement and support freebie programs to get votes. California has been controlled by Democrats for many years and is in a financial crisis. The US or California will never recover as long as idiots like you have tunnel vision and vote for any Democrat because they are a Democrat. Yes I live in California and am a Democrat.
California supports the deficits of 10 RED states that would die without CA's fed tax money.
So that fantasy post you just spewed is complete and total nonsense.
10 of the poorest states are RED and would dies without Blue states paying for their incompetence.
Proof please.....with links.
Common Sense? Really Supports 10 red states. Hmm at last check California Deficit was $25B
and here is a link for your edification ()
Do your fact checking before you choke on your own words
Does these nutty left wing "climate change" (remember it used to be "global warming") people think the USA alone is going to affect the earths weather? Even if the (insert tongue firmly in cheek) evil "GOP".....the origins of everything wrong (remove tongue from cheek) were to cow down to every nutty tree hugger demand the USA would not affect/change the weather globally. How utterly silly.....and stupid.
Good grief....how do these people keep getting elected.
Damn them all to hell'n back!!! When the survivors of Hurricane Katrina were wallowing in their own filth, who helped them? Not the U.S. government because until George W. Bush realized the gravity of the situation, he was quite content to do a "fly-over" of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast on Air Force One, and let them fend for themselves. Now that a major hurricane has struck the "supposed" epicenter of the media universe in and around New York City, are things any different? Nooooooooooooooo!!! Let them struggle because it'll only make the survivors stronger!!! The weak need to realize they're being sacrificed so the strong can survive.
There is no "Climate Change". The 50's and 60's saw many hurricanes go up the East coast. Another point, the amount of $80 Billion is exactly what obama would get from the increased tax on the so called Rich. A years taxes blown for 3 Blue States for a 2 day storm. Most of all, blaming storms in order to get government aid is ludicrous. I do not want to pay for a bunch of idiots that over populate areas that regularly get hit with these storms. I have never had to take government assistance and the helplessness of most Americans today is sickening. Plan, prepare and be self reliant. Don't keep stealing from your fellow citizens to keep bailing you out.
Ya, everyone complains about money paid for disasters till it happens to THEIR town LOL LOL
Not so. I said I do not take handouts. I would rebuild with the money from private insurance and my own sweat and blood. You, evidently, are a pathetic, helpless being. I feel sorry for your fear filled life. You will never know true freedom.
These are 5 incidents from 2012 when your state asked for and received Federal assitance.
Judge not least you be judged Paul;, and be careful who you call pathetic, you little worm....
Be careful who you call a worm. Those were Federal lands burning.
Oh of course that storm will be used to deflect responsibility on the governments departments. And what timing! Genius of them. And what will they create next to distract from the demise of our Beautiful America? Think they can't create chaos ie. storms, wars, famine and disease? Think again! You are being bullshatted. And not only allowing it but inviting it in with whom you vote for. Bunch a soft ,white under bellied, spineless, no-mind, media overloaded, liberal, it's all good freaks!
Thank you Robin. Semper Fi!
These are 2 incidents from 2012 when your state asked for and received Federal assistance.
You seem to think we profited or even wanted assistance. We would change the law. No welfare also. No food stamps. No Medicaid. You don't get it. You assume we are all beggars and welfare cheats like you.
You are so delusional. Do you know that New Mexico ranks 11th in welfare recipents per capita. New Jersey is 37th. I'm not asking for free money, that 80 billion was asked for by Christie to help rebuild the state. I work 40 hours a week. Since Sandy, I come home from work and eat dinner. I then go down the basement which was flooded and remove the @!$%# that's down there until I can't work no more. I go to bed and do the same thing the next day. I've got my basement clean and am now going through boxes to see what is salvageable. I clean what I can recover and throw away what I can't On weekends if the weather is nice I'm outside trying to get the sand off my lawn and if not I'm back in the basement. But there are things I can't do, like beach repletishment or rebuilding the sea walls higher then they were or repairing infrastructure. Those are the things that Christie asked the money for. I never complained that my tax dollars were being spent helping out people in other parts of the country that were in need. If you don't agree that's your right, but please ask your Governor to stop taking my money first.
Ah yes, the continued redistribution of wealth. For $11 per month they could have had flood insurance and all would have been taken care of, yet like so many, libs seek to rob Peter to pay Paul. The world outside to those in NY and NJ doesnt exist. The liberal woe-is-me attitude is what is destroying this country. What? Mommy and daddy didnt love you enough to teach you how to fend for yourself, how to be responsible enough to take care of yourself and your family.
The sad thing, libs dont realize they're being sucked into the social utopia propoganda. You should be insulted by your liberl leaders. Here are just 4 reasons why: it is morally wrong to take anything that doesn't belong to you and having the state do the taking doesn't magically make it okay or right. Second, socialism has been tried repeatedly and has never worked, anywhere. Yet each new crop of elites think they can enact socialism and this time it will be different. They stick the socialist fork back in the electrical outlet expecting a totally different outcome, but it always ends up the same.
"Third, when people become reliant on the state, that reliance erodes their self-respect, their sense of self-worth, their work ethic, and their independence. Finally, socialism promotes class envy and class warfare. The makers resent the takers for draining their resources and the takers resent the makers because no matter how much the takers take, they always want more.
Major metropolitan areas, like the boroughs of NY, Chicago, Miami, LA, San Antonio, Boston all have dense populations. So dense in fact they tend to suck up much of the state’s resources, including those earmarked for less populated areas. Additionally all of the metropolitan areas have another thing major thing in common, and while it is taboo to talk about, it has to be said. More than 90% of welfare and social program recipients reside in these densely populated areas. Thus you have a significant cause and effect situation. People, who tend to rely upon social programs as a means to survive, tend to support politicians who support social program expansion. This however comes at a significant cost. These citizens or not citizens pay very little into the system and use most of the resources. Yet the working middle, upper middle and wealthy pay for 99% of social programs and receives maybe 5% of the services from said programs.
On the Virg of what? Revolution I hope.
Oh blah, blah, blah LOL
You should know better.
The "system" was setup and evolved as an "open" system. In other words when humans started exploiting the environment there didn't seem to be any limits to how much could be taken and how much waste could be dumped. We were like babies magically getting everything that we needed and having our diapers changed by dear old mama nature. So we setup corporate law to reflect that apparent "reality". It was fine to privatize all of the profits and dump the costs on the public and the environment since there was no apparent limit to what it could give and take.
Now we are being disciplined by mama to grow up and act more responsibly. We have tried to avoid the obvious for as long as possible but the longer that we do the greater the costs are becoming. Still some of us want to continue business as usual. Those same babies hope to continue to profit at the expense of the rest of us. They will never grow up until they have to. Unfortunately the current "system" rewards destruction of value and creation of quickly consumable value, planned obsolescence and proprietary obstacles to efficiency. The laws that make it profitable to build to destroy to rebuild for endless profit need to be changed soon. A spoilt child can have fun and get attention by breaking his toys for only so long before the kind parent says no more. Mama nature is putting it on our tab.
It is best to wake up sooner than later. The most likely result of waiting too long is that our leaders will decide that they don't want to die so they will allow war to control the population. If you don't want war to control the population than pressure out leaders to change the laws to favor the creation and preservation of things of long term and easily maintained value. Also, pressure them to reduce or eliminate the incentives for enormous profit from the destruction, creation, destruction cycle. People have been trained to believe that we would all be unemployed if things last too long.
Why not make a world where we make value that is so durable that we mostly work for fun instead of to rebuild what was build poorly and in a way that is unrepairable?
We need to wake up and grow up before we have to have world war III to take care of the problems that stem from being spoilt selfish babies for too long. Lets make laws that reward a mature species and encourage our species to act responsibly or else wars and the environment will spank us harder and harder until we learn to face the truth and grow up. We all should know by now that our planet's human life support system is under strain. Anything that can ease that strain would behove all of us.
All change is opposed by those who are profiting most by the status quo. Understandably they don't want to rock the boat on their cash cows and golden geese. The current legal system could care less if we all die. It would be legally fine for the last person alive to own everything. Is this a sane system? If not then we need to pressure the law makers to change the law to reflect reality and our growing awareness of the limits of our environment before it is too late. War is usually the traditional answer for spoilt brats that need to throw a fit when their low pain threshold is exceeded. Wise mature people see problems coming and take action before a crisis is necessary. It's much easier to do that when waste and war are not so short term profitable for the powerful ones.
You have no point. What an idealistic bunch of crap. Grow up. We all want good things. You have no clue how to do it. What do you think your point is? Any solutions? Do not spout marxist crap please. Thank you.
Oh blah, blah, blah, anyone that disagrees with me is spouting crap, blah, blah, ya sure, whatever LOL LOL