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john65pennington's avatar

Did you know that FEMA wants the money back?

Asked by john65pennington (29273points) May 10th, 2011

$22 million dollars to be exact. During the 2008 floods in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, FEMA mistakingly issued $20,000 dollar checks to flood victims. FEMA states the mistakes were made by FEMA employees that did not understand the requirements for federal aid, in a flooding situation. Now, FEMA is asking those flood victims to return the money within 30 days. Question: don’t you just know these flood victims still have that $20,000 dollars tucked away somewhere and they never used it? I say, good luck to FEMA in trying to collect our tax dollars that you “screwed up again”. What is your opinion?

Source: AP

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6 Answers

bkcunningham's avatar

They were in a flood, FEMA gives them $20,000 checks and now they want it back? How many did this happen to @john65pennington? I say good luck too.

BarnacleBill's avatar

5500 people, 120+ disasters, back to 2005. So that’s about 50 people per disaster. They are people who were ineligible for aid. Meaning it could be something like the didn’t own their dwelling or they overstated their losses.

marinelife's avatar

I think that the government will collect, but it will cause ill will.

bkcunningham's avatar

@BarnacleBill, if that is correct, this could turn into the debit card/gas morality question.

BarnacleBill's avatar

Source for statistics cited

Part of it is actually bigger than reported. The improper payments from Katrina and Rita are $643 million to 160,000 individuals

Forbes article about Senate’s position.

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