Virginia State Government Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Virginia State Government - Essay Example 18, making monies available for â€Å"grants to pay for temporary housing, minor home repairs and other serious disaster-related expenses† (1). There is little argument that these services were needed, but the number of requests in the years to come might speak volumes. In June 2004, aid was given to Virginia once again. The â€Å"Federal Disaster Aid Authorized for Virginia Storms† press release read that funds were requested for a â€Å"series of severe storms† (para. 1). Most of the money went to southwestern Virginia to help residential families and small businesses affected by flooding from rainstorms, and damage done by tornadoes. In December 2006, the state of Virginia made application to FEMA once again for damage done by Tropical Storm Ernesto. This time, however, the state was denied FEMA help. In â€Å"FEMA Denies Richmond’s Housing-Money Request,† Michael Martz writes that the city was denied â€Å"more than $198,000 †¦ spent to house people in hotels and apartments after their North Side neighborhoods were flooded Sept. 1† (para. 2). Even with the rejection, Martz reported that Virginia officials still planned to apply for $35 million to fix a collapsed sewer line, and to take preventive measures against further flooding in the city’s Battery Park. Later that year, a news story titled â€Å"Blame the Weather† appeared in Economist. Although Virginia was not named specifically, the main idea of the article was that â€Å"bad weather and bad government may be related† (para. 1). The story read that the large influxes of cash provided by FEMA made it easy for government officials to skim money off the top by inflating the actual amount of damage done, demanding kickbacks from contractors hired to rebuild, etc. It was revealed that if FEMA were defunct, government corruption would be â€Å"cut by more than 20% in the average state† (para. 4). That is based on the idea of each state’s resident being cheated out of only $1. This