Sagepaper

Okay, I got this one wrong. The demise of this program comes as a relief to me, but only partially. FEMA will use other means of getting the people their money.

I've got friends in low places. You can't give someone who's eyes light-up at the sight of a twenty-dollar bill $2,000. It sounds noble and dignified and empowering to give them each their allotment and let them choose their own destiny. It is, in fact, a great unkindness. First, people will take advantage of them; sometimes legally, sometimes not. Of those who are defrauded, few will know what to do about it. Of those methods of fraud resulting in class-action lawsuits, most will probably recover funds. That would be several years from now, and we are in a hurry to help.

Problems in judgment are why we have regulations on WIC and Food Stamps. It should be possible to create five or six budget-templates, have a volunteer sit with them for an average of seven minutes, and have them leave with a plan to go with the cash. We should keep it in mind for next-time. This fiasco is already complex enough.

Aside from my concerns that funds would be used in a suboptimal way, I am upset by the overall concept. I thought they would be given debit cards that could be used at "point-of-service," at the time you check out. It never occurred to me that they would have a straight cash conversion on these, where they could take the cards to ATM's.

We already know New Orleans had some unsavory characters, shooting senselessly. Some activity was identified as gang activity. This flood gave a lot of addicts a chance to come clean, or rather, little choice in the matter. We saw that gangs took over the Conference Center. I don't think they ended-up in the Astrodome.

How would you like to get a $2,000 debit card to begin rebuilding your family, then be escorted to an ATM Machine with a pistol in your back? Fancy-talking financial types aren't the only way to be sadly parted from your money. Unfortunately, we will not be able to reimburse all the losses, and there will be plenty.

We tax-payers will pour money into real-estate and loan scams, price-gouging, poor financial decisions (Yeah, you can afford that TV now, but in six-months your children's clothes won't fit.), and to top it all off, we will be buying illicit drugs for the citizens and guns for the gangs. The real tragedy is, after we shell out all that money so the poor can learn the hard way, they won't be able to apply their lessons. We won't give them another $2,000 per family.