I can’t say; since the Feds are refusing to do even that, we’ll never know. Some folks admittedly complain when their cash gets refused with a sneering “your money is no good here” – but so long as folks complain when the other guy simply pockets their cash, in exchange for a big plate o’ nothing, while demanding yet more cash for yet more nothing, I figure we should give 'em the benefit of the doubt.
“We’ve been told we need to be cautious because if FEMA does come through, [disbursements] could affect those homeowners’ chances of getting a FEMA grant,” said Willie L. Gentry Jr., Board of Supervisors chairman … “We have raised about $200,000, but we can’t really give any of the money out. We’re still waiting to see what FEMA’s going to do,” Gentry said. “With $18 million, $200,000 isn’t going to go very far and we’ve been told we could jeopardize people getting other funds.”
"The local fundraiser Friday night at which McDonnell aides presented $5,000 from the governor’s Opportunity Virginia PAC was dubbed ‘Louisa Cares’ or as the local newspaper put it: ‘Louisa cares: Because the feds don’t.’ … “Old Dominion also ended the fiscal year in surplus, according to the governor’s office. The state ended up nearly $545 million in the black over the summer. About $17.4 million of that went to a natural disaster reserve fund, part of which provided tornado relief following an April disaster in which FEMA also declined to provide aid. Another $30 million went into a ‘Federal Action Contingency Trust’ Fund that the governor created to help offset future shortages in federal assistance.”
I’m not religious, I don’t find myself being bound by oaths that I didn’t willingly choose to make.
And I believe government agents shouldn’t refuse aid on the basis of politics, but if they did, and for not just political but specifically hypocritical people, I wouldn’t find that unethical.
Yes. Like others have said, the taxes they’re paying that goes to a specific department like FEMA is a tiny percentage of their overall taxes. If I had instead insisted absolutely no federal help go to them, taking away their ability to go to public parks, museums, using public roads, Medicare, public housing, etc., then I would rightly agree that they should pay no taxes either. But to narrow down all your taxes and say that you deserve to be tax-free, or have a significant percentage of your taxes cut, due to the refusal of one agency, is assuming equal distribution when there is none.
We apparently agree that, if you withhold all benefits, you shouldn’t charge them anything; in that case, you say, “they should pay no taxes”. I’m merely asking whether you’d keep charging them a small amount while withholding a single benefit: they keep paying for parks and museums and et cetera, and they also keep paying “a tiny percentage” for the benefit in question.
I’m not asking you to cut what you feel is “a significant percentage” of their taxes; I’m asking you to cut what you feel is “a tiny percentage”.
I don’t think that the money from a person’s taxes going to a singular, specific department, unless otherwise ennumerated somehow in the tax code, is quantifiable. Therefore, I would keep charging them fully on taxes while withholding a single benefit, even if that benefit were, on the surface, huge.