Billions In Hurricane Aid For Texas—Please Stop Talking About Small Government
Texas is going to get billions of dollars in federal money for hurricane relief after Hurricane Ike.
Good.
When Texans refuse this money, I’ll believe all the talk around here about small government and government out of our lives.
Maybe as we get the help we need from money raised by the taxes we pay, we can begin to see ourselves as part of a community instead of lone rangers or whatever.
Stuff happens and people need help—Even in Texas.
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Welcome To Texas Liberal
Texas Liberal is a blog of politics and political history.
My name is Neil Aquino. Here is my profile.
I can be reached at naa618@att.net.
Additional focuses of the blog are books, art, poetry, personal relationships and, also, sea life and marine mammals.
( The picture above is of the Houston Ship Channel. A narrow channel can lead to a wide sea.)
The signature post of this blog is the Martin Luther King Reading & Reference List. This list is the best of it’s kind on the web.
Another good post is my reciting the words to the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts on Galveston Island, Texas as a ship passes behind.
I live in Houston, Texas and I do sometimes write about political issues in Houston and in Texas.
I also often write about my former hometown of Cincinnati, and about the great beach city of Galveston, Texas.
I define liberalism as a role for government in the economy to help make life more fair, and a broad acceptance of people regardless of who they are.
This is why it says “All People Matter” at the top of the blog.
A blog grows one reader at a time. If you like what you read here, please consider forwarding the link.
Texas Liberal began regular posting on July 25, 2006.
I also blog at the Houston Chronicle as one of eight featured political bloggers, and on Where’s The Outrage? which posts out of North Carolina.
Thanks for reading Texas Liberal.
Recent Comments
people get small or large confused with efficient and not. people would not mind large if it was working, the partisan bs on both sides is what make people have a bad taste for gov. if the gov. conducted itself for the best interest of the people more consistantly there would be greater support. if our leaders were not controlled by money and were driven by the idea that they are going to make america the greatest place to live the whole process would be perceived in a different light. both sides agree that the waste needs to be cut but either side will get it done.
Many feel goveernment should do as little as possible in any case. How can all the attacks on government since Reagn not have impacted how well government does its job? Liberals have a distinct view that government has a roll to play in making day-to-day life better. The public mood is shifting to this view.
There’s always Ron Paul, who voted against the hurricane aid for his own district. He may be the last consistent conservative, but sometimes he seems like the last consistent nut-case.
Tonight will mark two weeks without electricity (15 days and counting). I am a little sour because I am one of the last people in Houston with no power, but I realize somebody has to be last. I am also not surprised it takes over two weeks to restore power after a storm that bad. But, I have seen a number of bad sides of CenterPoint lately and thought this would be a good place to post them.
First of all, I believe this problem would not have been nearly as bad if CenterPoint had maintained the trees around their lines. In my neighborhood, most yards had branches over the lines before the storm. I asked multiple tree pruners to remove those limbs in our yard, but they refused due to the risk. Also CenterPoint refused to come out unless the limbs had already damaged the line.
The YMCA near our neighborhood is where they meet in the morning before heading out on their assignments. We have caught them parking in our neighborhood right after that morning meeting, hiding out and drinking beers for a few hours. This was right after the storm.
We are confused why Galveston was given such a high priority given the level of destruction there. What is the point of restoring power first to places that cannot accept it? We were particularly disheartened when we saw a news shot showing giant new transmission towers there that led to buildings that no longer existed. I agree Galveston needs power too, but maybe it should have been restored to intact buildings first.
We were recently visited by CenterPoint’s tree contractor. They trimmed our trees away from the lines, as we had requested long before the storm. However, they did not remove the branches they trimmed, or the garbage from their food wrappers. So our yard and roof is littered with tree debris to nearly the same degree it was after the storm. Waste Management will not pick this up on the street, so we have to pay $20 to a landfill for every load we take over there (that’s one that was marked as free in the newspaper). In addition, we watched them drop the limbs on the lines causing further damage. They broke my phone line and cable line and left it on the ground in the backyard with large branches on top of it. They also untied a few things on my back patio on the way out.
Now to add insult to injury, I see that CenterPoint is going to bill last September’s usage instead of reading our meters. So even though I haven’t been able to use electricity, they are going to send a huge bill my way? That just doesn’t seem legal.
Finally, I just called to see if there was any specific update for our area. Evidently there was no work order for us. The operator verified that slightly less than 1000 homes in our part of the grid are without power, but the work order was missing. So she created one. Now I am wondering if that puts us at the end of the list.
Robert—I added you blog to blogroll. Please visit the blog again.
Ruth—Nothing I can add. Hope it gets better soon for you.
the other part is the right slams the left for controlling the congress but without the votes they can be the majority and not have control. left president and left controlled congress not just majority will answer all the questions of can the left with total power make change and change for the better. I hope so. they will have two years to change the tide of shit the last 8 year has done. they will need to work fast and smart and my faith is low. i am a lefty