Sunday, October 27, 2013

Still Not Okay

Stronger than the storm? Maybe Chris Christie is. He will surely win the upcoming election, however I don't know anyone who would vote for him.
In my town here on the Jersey shore many are still waiting for help and funds that will probably never come, funds Chris Christie had access to and used to plaster his face in an expensive public relations advertising scheme using over  $2 million that could have gone to families in need. There are somewhere around 26,000 families still displaced.
Our community center flooded during the storm it will be re-opened today providing a photo-op for Governor Christie, he is finally getting around to coming to my town. We didn't have a boardwalk or amusement
rides where I live, guess Christie had better things to do, like rebuilding a boardwalk that later sustained millions of dollars in damage as a result of a fire.


Christie has blamed a majority of the problems in getting relief to the people who have lost their homes on the red tape the government established after Hurricane Katrina. Applications have been lost, people have been fired, mistakes made that resulted in errors that denied people funding and another committee has been set up to figure out why these things occurred.
As much as I dislike Christie I can't blame the whole Sandy mess on him,
the fact is that that there are multiple reasons why this catastrophe has hit people so hard. One big reason no one talks about is the state of the economy. I know where I live, what once was cottages only meant for summer use became year round residences for people. As the economy melted down people began to double up with their parents and grandparents.

This is a good example of a lot of the houses that were flooded during the storm.
Some people inherited these places from family and when times got hard they moved in and stayed, living on a coastline year round where housing should never have been built, not unless you expect to be flooded out at anytime. Some of these people are retirees who bought these places years ago, paid cash and had no flood insurance. How these people will be able to rebuild  remains to be seen. Add to that the burden of what is already known as the highest property tax rate in the country and you have a recipe for what will be another disaster. This month I went to the township to pay my taxes and asked the workers there how many people were coming back after being flooded out, their answer? "Not many". Taxes will be going up here in order to make up for lost revenue, but you can't get more out of a populace that's overtaxed and underemployed.
Many people owned second homes here, I personally know a guy who had FEMA come out to his parents vacation home, that's right, a second home, this guy wanted the government to pay for. If he did it, I can't imagine how many others did, wasting FEMA's time and money that could have been used for those truly in need.
 I am wondering if I should bother leaving the house today since traffic will be a nightmare with Christie in town. There are a lot of  people who are very excited about Christie's visit, he is just doing what a politician does before an election, that's all that this fanfare is. I fail to see how it's going to help any of the people who are still suffering here.
First we get a hurricane and now we get a huge windbag. 





7 comments:

  1. Sorry for all that happened, but the last sentence made me laugh out loud.

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  2. A couple of thoughts:
    - do you suppose political hot air contributes to global warming?
    - Alternatively, if we could harness all of that hot air, we could keep everyone warm through the coldest winters, though there would still be precious little light.

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  3. Kirk, I was fortunate enough NOT to have been flooded, but my heart goes out to everyone in my community.
    Mister Ornery, one thing I didn't have time to touch on, is the whole lack of planning for climate change..sea levels are rising, superstorms, etc. Politicians = more talking =more CO2, I am thinking, contributing to greenhouse gasses!

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  4. I, uh, know this is off topic, kind of, but I have to ask. Since he had a belt inserted into his abdomen and tightened around his stomach, has Governor Fatso lost any weight? I really don't see it if he has, and I'm beginning to wonder if even his appetite is stronger than the storm. Besides, even though I admit it's horribly politically incorrect, I do so love calling him Governor Fatso.

    Crankily yours,
    The New York Crank

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  5. Hey Crank, I am not sure if he has lost a pound. I think he got that surgery because an obese man will NEVER be elected President. I just couldn't stomach, if you catch my drift, going down to see him and getting a pic.

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  6. Well, I apologetically admit I saw him on TV this morning (Tuesday, 10.29) on...well, it was either CNN or CBS, and he does appear to have lost some weight. He appears to be down from laughably obese to merely fat.

    Crankily,
    The New York Crank

    ReplyDelete
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