"What do we need to do right now for Puerto Rico? Something similar to a Marshal Plan. Time is a wasting. People are suffering. Some are dying. Excuses and blame will not cut it. Only life saving results will."
I really struggled with the title of this article. Part of me wanted to name it "Haiti 2.0" instead. If you have not guessed by now, this article is about the relief efforts going on in Puerto Rico. There are some similarities to Haiti, in that both Haiti and Puerto Rico are islands not that far from our shores. And both Haiti and Puerto Rico garnered some relief supplies which sat (or are sitting) at the ports rather than being sent to the people. But here is why I settled on Katrina 2.0 instead.
Katrina was not about corruption - the relief effort to Haiti after the earthquake was. Katrina was about inefficiency. Massive inefficiency. And the inability of county, state and federal relief agencies to work together. In the aftermath of Katrina, people died. A lot of people. And a lot of those people who died did not have to.
The Mayor of San Juan (Puerto Rico) was on the news this morning. She was crying as she was trying to do a presser. "We are dying here! We need help!" As good as the needed aid was to arrive in a timely fashion in Houston, is as bad as it has been in Puerto Rico. It has been nine days since Maria essentially made mince meat out of Puerto Rico's infrastructure, and many people on the island have not seen one drop of water nor one crumb of food coming from rescuers.
I also learned a new term this past week - "zombie apartments". Those are the high rise apartments in San Juan which are just sitting empty right now. Why? No electricity to use the elevators. And even if one could get top side to check on his or her apartment, with no electricity, the rooms would be unbearably hot and there would be no fresh food to eat.
Once the dead have been buried, the storm damage cleaned up, and the infrastructure restored, I am sure there will be a "lessons learned" exercise done by FEMA. Well, I don't need to wait that long. I will now give you my take:
- The way we provide relief to an island community who has suffered a natural disaster is abysmal at best. Both Haiti and Puerto Rico have been classic fails. After Katrina, we have gotten much better at providing relief for CONUS cities after hurricanes, but that is about it.
- Puerto Rico should have had "all hands on deck" when it appeared the storm was going to make a direct hit. Having only half the national guard mobilized was not a good play.
- Here is the money line. Seeing how crippled up this tiny island is without an electrical grid, just imagine how crippled up our nation would be in the event of a cyber attack on our grid, or God forbid, an EMP strike. And for those who think that "living vertically" in downtown is trendy, make sure you check out those "zombie apartments" on the news tonight. That could be you if something happened to our electrical grid.
What do we need to do right now for Puerto Rico? Something similar to a Marshal Plan. Time is a wasting. People are suffering. Some are dying. Excuses and blame will not cut it. Only life saving results will.
Larry, We agree 99.9% of the time. This is an exception
ReplyDeleteHurricane response is virtually 100% due to hurticane preparedness and PR and San Juan was poorly prepared. I spent 3 weeks with the Red Cross assisting Katrina victims. NO and their Parishes were poorly prepared and used federal hurricane grant money for other purposes (yes Mayor Nagin et al were corrupt). The Mayor of Ssn Juan can cry and deflect blame but should look no further than a mirror for placing blame for lack of preparedness. She should look to FL & TX for best practices on hurricane preparedness.
45 has said they are getting great reviews from PR. 45 has indicated the relief efforts are outstanding. Best Ever!
ReplyDeleteWhere are you getting your information from?
The new GOP tax plan delivers a big tax cut to the wealthiest Americans while some in lower tax brackets would end up paying more.
ReplyDeleteThe plan being touted by 45 as the biggest tax cut ever delivers 50 percent of its total tax benefit to taxpayers in the top 1 percent, those with incomes above $730,000 a year, according to the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution. For those wealthy taxpayers, their after-tax incomes would increase 8.5 percent next year.
For other taxpayers, though, the benefits are far more modest or non-existent, the report finds. Taxpayers in the bottom 95 percent would see tax cuts averaging 1.2 percent of after-tax income or less next year. And about 12 percent of taxpayers would face a tax increase next year, of $1,800 on average. That includes more than a third of taxpayers making between about $150,000 and $300,000, mostly because of the elimination of many itemized deductions.
By 2027, taxes would increase for about a quarter of Americans, including nearly 30 percent of those earning about $50,000 to $150,000 a year, and 60 percent of people making $150,000 to $300,000, according to the study.
“The number of taxpayers with a tax increase rises over time,” it said. That’s because the Republican plan would replace personal exemptions, which are tied to inflation, with some tax credits that aren’t tied to inflation.