Editor,
Having just moved here from Houston, I found Mr. Krotz’s column [ESI Sept. 13] needed some fact checks. His first statement, “Hurricane Harvey helped the Texas Congressional delegation, who voted against Hurricane Sandy relief in 2012,” was misleading. There were two emergency relief bills passed in the aftermath of the 2012 disaster. The first for $10 billion passed both Houses of Congress, with a voice vote in the Senate. The entire $10 billion went to fund FEMA and its flood insurance program for the disaster.
However, the second bill, for $60 billion, that ultimately passed both the House and Senate, was not supported by the majority of Texas Republicans in the House, and by neither of Texas’s Senators. If you refer to the webpage politifact.com, you’ll get a much more accurate picture of what Texas Congressmen disagreed with, namely that only $17 billion of the $60 billion went directly to homeowners that lost their property and possessions, who were not covered by Federal Flood Insurance.
The second statement is even more fiction than truth, “the 500 counties that voted for HRC vs. the 2,600 who voted for the Donald pay most of the taxes, earn most of the money, account for two thirds of all US productivity, and rely less on the US Welfare System.” Wow! So the metropolitan regions of Little Rock, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, Washington DC and Miami (to name a few) are the hardest working, pay the most taxes, living on their own dime type of people that deserve monuments?
Perhaps those same cities should be recognized for their citizens on welfare, food stamps, illegal drug use, unemployment, and why don’t you take up a collection for a monument to celebrate the Welfare Fraud in each of these cities! I guess the hundreds of thousands of farmers in the Midwest that provide the food for your table, and those coal miners and oil field workers that provide power to your homes, are much less productive than some Wall Street Daddy Warbucks who inherited his wealth, or some soon to be faded out Hollywood types that seem to be living more on their fame than reality?
Please send this on to him, as I would not want some of your “Blue Nose” readers to attempt to track me down as my knuckles personality, my bible, and my guns might not be taken as Southern Pride in these parts!
Robert Gronwaldt
[Eds. Note: Readers interested in tax policy and tax collections and remittances can consult the independent, non-partisan Tax Foundation at https://taxfoundation.org. It provides comprehensive state and county reports.]