J.J. Watt Raises over $10M to help Harvey Victims

Huh. You didn't strike me as the type of person who would care about what site was linked to. Its appears you may have feelings after all.

Hahahahahahaahahahaha, yeah, to his strip clubs... 

Mayweather? What does he have to do with Houston?

I lol'd

Easier said than done. Raise taxes to do it? Silly gulf states, get your shit together! Meanwhile, in Flint...

The Pacific NW is due for a 9.0 earthquake that will kill a lot of people. Some death toll estimates are upwards of 10,000 in the massive tsunami that will devastate the Oregon and Washington coasts.

But nah, let's not spend money on a tsunami warning system or retrofitting and reinforcing vulnerable dams, bridges, and buildings. 

I'm with you, Dudeness. 

You really think hurricanes dumping 50 inches of rain is going to be somehow preventable?  What world to you live in, Dudness?  The Netherlands don't have to worry about hurricanes in their part of the world.  At least not the kind of ones the Gulf Coast experiences.  I was in Amsterdam a few years ago when a hurricane hit.  I was at the Reichsmuseum at the time and didn't know it occurred.  Afterwards there are a dozen or so trees that had fallen into and across the canals.  I guess you admire how they prepared for that.

You are missing the forest for the trees here, my friend. It is precisely because of attitudes about the federal government - rather than a lack of effective government intervention - that has resulted in this outcome in Texas and similar states. Remember, a substantial portion of Texas despises any kind of "federal intervention" in their state, or even simple local coordination and regulation. Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississipi are similarly "deep red" in terms of their feelings about the feds. 

But hey, as Ted Cruz is showing us right now - after trying to prevent Hurricane Sandy funding - they'll put their hands out AFTER the fact and suckle from the government teet, if it helps them keep their voters happy... 

Serious answer to this: state/municipal finance is a complicated situation. I'm not saying you're wrong. You're not wrong. I'm just saying that we have an incentive structure in place that discourages long-term infrastructure spending. First, who pays for it? The state, the city, the county, or the feds? Nobody wants to volunteer to pay, because a key feature of revenue sharing agreements is claiming that you're broke. Second, a lot of state or local governments are still reeling from the 2001 and 2008 recessions. Don't underestimate the hole that 40% asset losses, stagnant income, and lowered property tax revenue blew into long term budgeting. Third, and this is unfortunate, but the minute that even a hint of surplus appears in the budget, there are a lot of legislators with ideas of how to spend it. Some recognize how easy it is to get reelected on a tax-cutting agenda. Others recognize how easy it is to shore up their own pet project. Almost nobody ever says "let's bank this against a rainy day". You know Michigan's Rainy Day fund was almost nothing for the last several years of Granholm? She and her government had some tough decisions to make. Finally, the lack of flood protection is unfortunately not the top infrastructure item that is terrifyingly absent or out of date. We have dams, bridges, locks, and sewers that are 25 years past their expiration dates and just waiting to fail.

If nobody lived there nobody would have died.

I live in Houston and my solution, at least for housing, is this: require new construction to be 5-6!ft off the ground. In certain areas this is already a requirement. Prime example: my mother just had her older home flooded with 4 ft of water while the new house next door was fine because it was elevated.
As far as the developments built next to the levees, the CORP of Engineers tried to prevent this from happening but $ talks. No new construction should be allowed within a certain perimeter of the levees.

That's all I got for now back to Sheetrock demo.