Hurricane Isaac 2

Not only did the President authorize disaster relief, Bobby Jindal said that it wasn't enough money.  Excuse me!  Isn't this the guy who turns down federal money because he doesn't want to corrupt his principles?  Isn't this the party that is conducting a convention where they advocate eliminating these programs?  A State official said that the Federal Government was needed because it was a national security/ energy emergency.  There are multiple problems with this statement.  First, all of the companies involved are private, shouldn't they fix it themselves?  Second, at least the energy companies are acting like they are paying for it otherwise how do you explain the leap in gas prices?  Third, I don't see how my security in Wisconsin is jeopardized because Louisiana had a hurricane.  Why don't the hurricane prone states budget for hurricanes?  Just like sitting around the kitchen table, how many hurricanes do you think that we'll have this year?  This is ridiculous, these states have their hands out year after year to the rest of the country, feel sorry for us we had a hurricane.  We know hurricanes happen, we know that they are bad, what we don't understand is why you don't set money aside to pay for them.  I bet I could run a low tax state if for every "unexpected disaster" I went running to the Federal Government to pay for it.  Talk about a culture of dependence.  These guys talk about a smaller government but that must only be in theory.

Hurricane Isaac

The President should hold the anti government governors of the states likely to be affected by the hurricane accountable for past statements.  Which means, NO AID from taxpayers like me.

Didn't Build That

There has been a lot said about the President not giving the business owners credit for creating their business from nothing.  Unfortunately that is not really what he said.  What he was talking about is how having a stable society with services provided (police, fire,...), public infrastructure, and an educated work force allow people to create businesses.  There have been a lot of letters into the Wisconsin State Journal that have disputed this idea.  For proof that they didn't build it all you have to do is drive on highways 151 and 94.  There are 2 locations where a big corporation bought a bunch of land, probably relatively cheaply and built huge warehouse distribution facilities.  The only problem and probably a reason for low land prices is that there were not interchanges in those locations.  The state knowing that the $10 per hour jobs were important built interchanges at a cost of around $10 million dollars each.  The company didn't build it the taxpayers did.  The gas revenue from the trucks using these facilities will take a long time to pay for them (sorry it is a myth that the gas tax pays for the roads, we don't collect enough money).  There is another example from the same company where they wanted to build a store.  What they did was get the City of Monona to build the building in a wetland and then lease it to them.  They also had the roads in the area upgraded to handle the increased traffic.  So, the next time a company wants millions to stay in the state, highways built so that they can expand, public financing to expand,... remind the owners how exactly they are building their business themselves.