(ThyBlackMan.com) The Federal Emergency Management Agency mailed out over 83,000 debt notices this year to victims of Hurricane Katrina and other storms that occurred in 2005 during the administration of George W. Bush. The average FEMA debt from this period is about $4,622 per recipient, which many say is due to clerical errors. This has not stopped critics from trying to assign blame to President Obama.
Hurricane Katrina will perhaps go down as the biggest domestic debacle that occurred during the Bush administration. Fall out from the storm is still making the news in 2011 from criminal trials of former cops in New Orleans accused of murdering citizens trying to escape the disaster to the mishandling of FEMA funds provided to victims. The mishandling of the federal rescue effort in New Orleans prompted pop icon Kanye West to declare, “George Bush doesn’t care about Black People”. The infamous private security contractor 
Blackwater (Xe Services) were also called in by the Bush administration.
As if victims of the 2005 storms do not have enough to deal with in rebuilding their lives, FEMA has billed 83,000 of them for funds they received. FEMA claims that it improperly paid 385 million dollars to victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. That total represents about five-percent of the 8 billion dollars distributed to natural disaster victims in 2005. According to congressional testimony, many of the overpayments or improper payments were due to FEMA employee’s clerical errors and failure to interview those seeking disaster relief funds. Despite the apparent failure of the FEMA response to the disasters, George W. Bush would declare that FEMA head Michael Brown was doing a “heck of a job”. Brown would resign his position with FEMA in September of 2005.
As predicted by a group political science analyst, Obama is now blamed for the 2005 FEMA debacle.
“A group of political science analysts at UC Berkeley has deduced that within the next few years, conservatives will have successfully blamed Barack Obama for nearly all of George W. Bush’s wrongdoings.”
Judging from comments showing up on the web, they were correct in their predictions although the blame Obama game has manifested much sooner than they thought.
Michael Joseph May wrote,
“This administration needs to be eliminated. November seems just too far off. This crew can’t be de-throned too soon for me. These poor people regardless of income bracket got wacked by Katrina. FEMA’s errors are FEMA’s errors.”
aproudcajun wrote,
“This Administration’s gone too far. As a resident of theGulfCoastit’s time that the Feds realized that they’re responsible for their own screwups and not the people of this Country. Just as BP was responsible for their screwup related to the oil spill. Our fearless leader has ruined this Country and we all know that he’s not eligible to be the leader of this Country yet nobody wants to take on the puppet master to have him removed from the hotseat.”
Never mind the fact that under the Obama administration, FEMA has reduced “its error rate from about 14 percent after Katrina to less than 1 percent for more recent disasters”. Also ignored is a provision President Obama signed last Friday that allows FEMA to waive much of the debt that is not related to outright fraud. Victims can also apply for waivers due to economic hardships. It seems that facts never get in the way for those who want to blame Obama for everything, even those things that took place before he moved into the White House.
Staff Writer; Scotty Reid
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