This is Obama´s Katrina. A porked up bill is fine with him as long as the victims get a share and he gets the credit. Business as usual.

"As his wife Yetta, a homemaker, stood proudly behind her walker, Eichen held himself up high on his two canes beside a U.S flag and told how their 57-year-old daughter Fran McCabe, 61-year-old son Richard, nine grandchildren and a gaggle of friends and neighbors helped gut and rebuild their home."


Isn´t this supposed to be the way it works? Why is it always government that has to rebuild their homes? I hate to sound callous and I do appreciate his service, but many including my family served in WWII that isn´t a reason to rebuild his house.

#2 is nailing it. If we didn´t have government sponsored insurance and it had only been private insurance then they probably wouldn´t have built a house in that precarious location in the first place.

They should have only built in that location if they had the money to take the risk themselves and never call on taxpayers that are living their lives in less desirable locations to bail them out.

I live 1000 ft. above sea level. I don´t have a scenic view of the ocean. I resent being forced to subsidize someone else who does.

I´m with #2. Family, friends, and insurance should help with rebuilding his house, not the Gov.

Whenever I hear a veteran start a sentence with "I fought a war", I know where they are going with the rest of their sentence. I bet Mr. Eichen is a life-long Dem too....

You hate to be callous to older people, especially a vet. However, they live 400 feet from the ocean? That´s asking for it. No one living near those big levees in New Orleans expected them to break either but they did.

Dittos #1, #2, #3, & #4

My inlaws are Quakers dating back to the early days of when Indiana first became a state. They helped their neighbors raise barns and take care of each other when disasters hit. The family´s barn caught on fire when no one was home back in the 1950´s, but it got rebuilt with the help of having their own insurance and the neighbors and family pitching in. The family and their neighbors think that´s the way it´s done.

It was wrong for President Clinton to spend taxpayer money rebuilding private property and businesses. It was wrong when George Bush did it. And it is wrong for Obama to do it.

Many people over the last 4 years have lost their homes in various natural disasters. Why does one group of people deserve taxpayer money to rebuild when another does not?

Two-bit politicians are using this group of people to pay off politial donors, keep lobbyists happy, and set themselves up for future donations. These politicians are the real criminals and heartless POS for using real disasters for their own personal and political gain. We the people have lost control over our political system to professional politicians with no connection to this country or the people they are supposed to serve.

No, you fought in a war to defend the right of Americans to engage in "the pursuit of happiness." If living next to the ocean or a flood plain makes you happy, then go for it. But it is not the responsibility of other citizens, also pursuing happiness in their own fashion, to keep you happy at public expense.

The veteran fought for the ability to succeed or fail on his own merits. Our country was not founded upon a guarantee of happiness and the absence of risk.

great comments by the Ldotters

As I recall, people who served in the Merchant Marine (rather than the Armed Forces)during WW2 were not designated as "veterans" until recently. I believe they were paid more than $50 per month.

Who did they vote for? Who did their family vote for?

Yeah, might sound callous, but I could give a flick about "Sandy" victims. Most of this area gave the election to this freak in office. When I was a kid, a pipe broke in our house when we were on Christmas vacation out of state. The water ruined the downstairs part of our house, destroyed our Christmas presents, our tree, 1/2 our furniture, and made our house unlivable for a while.

My dad set to work with a neighbor and cleaned the place up and hired people to fix the rest. My sister, although teary eyed, salvaged what she could of the Christmas presents, which was not much. My mom repainted. It took months to get back to normal.

No one blamed the government or freaked out. It was just a bad thing to get through.

People amaze me.

Ditto #12. Have to know who they voted for before I give a hoot and then I may not.

Sorry but I add this. Is anyone else getting tired of all these "victims" of mother nature? A victim is someone who is raped, robbed or murdered. Hurricane´s and earthquakes do not create "victims".

As I enjoy pointing out to people when they complain that the Goverment done them wrong:

This is, after all, the same government that made all those treaties with the Indians. You thought they would treat you different?

This newspaper is a liberal Democrat supporting rag who is exploiting this elderly couple for political purposes. That is demonstrated in the article by their adverse remarks about the Republican Speaker of the House, while at the same time they print a photograph of Obama signing the insurance authorization bill into law.

Why should the Congress pass a porked up bill, actually the congress did the right thing by putting that bill aside until it could be debated and acted on under regular congressional order, while at the same time authorized the emergency insurance payments to the actual victims of the storm.

As other posters have mentioned, when you decide to live next to the open ocean it is your responsibility to properly insure your property, and it surely is not the responsibility of the taxpayers to fund a home rebuilding there so that another storm could come along and destroy it again.

#2 makes a good point.

In 1906, wasn´t San Francisco rebuilt without any federal money?
After the great Chicago fire, wasn´t the city of Chicago rebuilt without any federal money?
When someone elects to live next to the seashore, shouldn´t they insure themselves against the inevitable storm that will inundate their home?
Hasn´t the federal government given us enough instances to prove that it is incapable of providing relief services that are better than what private charities, family, friends and an insurance policy are able to provide?.

How many men died on his ship while he lived through a war ?

Many in the Merchant Marine in WW2 were communist sympathizers who wouldn´t bear arms to defend the USA, but joined because of the aid being transferred to Soviet Russia.