Your Tax Dollars At Work
Tuesday, October 18th, 2005
It seems that all of those poor evacuees from Hurricane Katrina had an urgent need for your tax dollars:
Hurricane Katrina evacuees hastily handed $2,000 in federal relief money last month have been living it up on Cape Cod, blowing cash on booze and strippers, a Herald investigation has found.
Herald reporters witnessed blatant public drinking at a Falmouth strip mall by Katrina victims living at taxpayer expense at Camp Edwards on Otis Air Force Base. And strippers at Zachary’s nightclub in Mashpee, a few miles from the Bourne base, report giving lap dances to several evacuees.
“They were tipping me $5 a pop,” said a Zachary’s dancer named Angel. “I told them I felt bad taking their money. But I still took it.”
It’s a good thing that they got those $2,000 debit cards out to those poor, starving evacuees. I mean, it is just inhuman to expect a man to go without Ripple or a lap dance for more than a couple of days. Can you say, “I was taken to the cleaners”?
One elderly man poured a bottle of Ruble vodka into a water bottle and spent the afternoon sipping the liquor outside the Wal-Mart. Two other men were seen buying 32-ounce Coors Light cans at George’s Liquors and drinking at the bus stop.
Last Tuesday, one 52-year-old evacuee, who told a reporter he was originally from Cuba, stood in the rain outside Wal-Mart for several hours drinking gin and orange juice from a thermos. The same day, a female evacuee bought ice at a supermarket and roughly $30 worth of hard liquor before being driven in a car back to Camp Edwards. Evacuees are banned from bringing booze onto the base.
So these guys are using my money to hang out at the Wal-Mart and knock back hard liquor and beer, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for them? After reading the reports from the media, I kind of expected these folks to be in the shelters, trying to put together the pieces of their shattered lives and figure out a way to start over. Instead, they are hanging out in front of the local mall and getting tanked. Beautiful.
The Camp Edwards residents have been treated to Red Sox and New Orleans Saints games, Boston Duck Tours, a chowder fest, concerts, and free cell phone and Internet service, as well as cookouts sponsored by Romney and U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).
Okay, the part about Ted Kennedy makes sense. After all, he practically invented getting tanked. However, look at all of the perks these people got. These people have received a ton of hospitality, care, and concern from people all over the country and in return, they get plastered. You want to know how this is possible?
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued more than $1.5 billion to 607,000 Katrina victims in the form of individual cash handouts of $2,000. There are no restrictions on how the money can be spent, FEMA officials said.
No restrictions? Why not? If you can limit food stamp recipients to buying only food items and no alcohol, why can’t FEMA do that with these debit cards? These debit cards are not supposed to be free cash, they are supposed to be used to feed and shelter victims of the hurricane until such time as they get back on their feet. Instead, the “victims” are binging on booze and falling off of their feet.
What a mess.
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