Missing the point


An editorial extolls entitlement and irresponsibility

The Los Angeles Times almost gets it.

MOVE OVER, RECKLESS CONSUMERS. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has outdone your irresponsible spending by racking up a debit card bill so outrageous it could have been created using Mad Libs. Sex-change operations, vacations to the Dominican Republic and wild nights at strip clubs were all bought on the government's dime by both con artists and legitimate victims of Hurricane Katrina. But try to keep that knee from jerking — although FEMA's oversight was lacking, wasted money is an inevitable byproduct of providing rapid emergency assistance.

The tawdry expenses are listed in a report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office. Though the headline makers were select items purchased with debit cards that FEMA gave out immediately after Katrina struck, the centerpiece of the survey was an estimate that about 16% of the agency's more than $6 billion in overall hurricane relief payments were improper and potentially fraudulent. And that figure is probably on the low side because it only accounts for certain categories of fraud, such as misrepresentation of identity and duplicate payments.

But then they end with this.

It's easy, and necessary, to criticize FEMA's across-the-board incompetence in responding to the largest displacement of Americans since the Civil War. But obsessing about the spending habits of refugees comes perilously close to blaming the victim.

This attitude grows entirely out of entitlement mentality,

If it wasn't government money we were talking about, no one would criticizing a private insurance company for "obsessing about the spending habits." What's more, responsible people would say that once money has been given AND wasted, the insurance company is under no obligation to provide more.

But because it is government relief money, people are entitled to waste the money AND get more besides BECAUSE they wasted the first bit and we don't want to "blame the victim."

And as an added effect, private insurance is forced out by public promises of relief.

Because people can count on the government to bail them out from their own mistakes, they make decisions they wouldn't make if they were footing the bills.

Like building in a flood zone. Or living in a hurricane area.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Mon - June 19, 2006 at 05:19 AM  Tag


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