Federal Dollars Expected For Storm Relief, Insured Losses Estimated Over $50 Million

Via the Clarion Ledger:

Insurance chief: Mississippi storm damage 'well north of $50M'

State expects to receive some federal relief

Damage from Saturday’s storm is “well north of $50 million (in insured losses),” Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney said today.

An exact monetary damage amount hasn’t yet been tallied.

“I think we’re going to get some type of (federal) relief,” he said Tuesday, noting Gov. Haley Barbour and others have been updating federal government officials on the severity of the damage.

The scope of the devastation, caused mainly by an EF4 tornado was still unfolding Tuesday.

Chaney said his office is still assessing the damage the storm did to commercial buildings and other non-residential properties and compiling a definitive number of homes destroyed around the state.

He says at least 700 homes statewide were damaged in Saturday’s storms. In Yazoo County alone, at least 150 homes are unhabitable, and an additional 67 suffered major damage, Chaney said.

Flora pitching in to assist with Yazoo Tornado Relief

The Town of Flora, along with the assistance of Wilmon Holmes, Ramey's Supervalu, Flora United Methodist Church and First Baptist Church, Flora will have a non-perishable food drop off at Ramey's Supervalu in Flora today (Tuesday) from 4 pm -7 pm and on Wed. 10 am - 6 pm and Thurs. 10 am - 6 pm . The donations will be taken to those who were affected by the deadly tornado last Saturday in Yazoo City and the surrounding area. Bottled water and non-perishable canned foods are greatly appreciated. Also in need are cleaning supplies such as mops, brooms, cleaning rags, Clorox, Mr. Clean, buckets, heavy duty garbage bags, and rubber gloves.

Congressman Gregg Harper: Mississippi Will Persevere

Congressman Gregg Harper delivered the following remarks today on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives regarding Governor Haley Barbour’s proclamation declaring April 27, 2010 as a Day of Prayer.

Despite The Spin: Still Government Motors

From Forbes:

GM is paying back Uncle Sam to shake him down for more money.

GM CEO Ed Whitacre announced in a Wall Street Journalcolumn Wednesday that his company has paid back its government bailout loan "in full, with interest, years ahead of schedule." He is even running TV ads on all major networks to that effect--a needless expense given that a credulous media is only too happy to parrot his claims for free. Detroit Free Press' Mike Thompson, for example, advises bailout proponents to start "warming up their vocal chords" to jeer their opponents with chants of "I told you so."

But before belting out their victory aria, GM-boosters ought to hear the whole story--not just the fairytale version about Government Motors' grand comeback that Mr. Whitacre is feeding them.

But when Mr. Whitacre says GM has paid back the bailout money in full, he means not the entire $49.5 billion--the loan and the equity. In fact, he avoids all mention of that figure in his column. He means only the $6.7 billion loan amount.


But wait! Even that's not the full story given that GM, which has not yet broken even, much less turned a profit, can't pay even this puny amount from its own earnings.

As it turns out, the Obama administration put $13.4 billion of the aid money as "working capital" in an escrow account when the company was in bankruptcy. The company is using this escrow money--government money--to pay back the government loan.

GM claims that the fact that it is even using the escrow money to pay back the loan instead of using it all to shore itself up shows that it is on the road to recovery. That actually would be a positive development--although hardly one worth hyping in ads and columns--if it were not for a further plot twist.

Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Ann Arbor-based Center for Automotive Research, points out that the company has applied to the Department of Energy for $10 billion in low (5%) interest loan to retool its plants to meet the government's tougher new CAFÉ (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards. However, giving GM more taxpayer money on top of the existing bailout would have been a political disaster for the Obama administration and a PR debacle for the company. Paying back the small bailout loan makes the new--and bigger--DOE loan much more feasible.


In short, GM is using government money to pay back government money to get more government money. And at a 2% lower interest rate at that. This is a nifty scheme to refinance GM's government debt--not pay it back!

GM boasts that, because it is doing so well, it is paying the $6.7 billion five years ahead of schedule since it was not due until 2015. So will there be an accelerated payback of the rest of the $49.6 billion investment? No. That goal has been pushed back, as it turns out.

In order to recover that investment, the government has to sell its equity. It plans to do that only when GM becomes a publicly traded company once again. GM was hoping to turn a profit by the end of 2010 and float an initial public offering this winter. However, GM Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell, when queried about that timeline a few days ago, demurred. The offering will be made, he said, "when the markets and the company are ready."

(Take that, taxpayers!)

More Proof: They Knew, But Hid It From the Public

From the American Spectator

What Lies Beneath


OFFICE POLITICS

The economic report released last week by Health and Human Services, which indicated that President Barack Obama's health care "reform" law would actually increase the cost of health care and impose higher costs on consumers, had been submitted to the office of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius more than a week before the Congressional votes on the bill, according to career HHS sources, who added that Sebelius's staff refused to review the document before the vote was taken.

"The reason we were given was that they did not want to influence the vote," says an HHS source. "Which is actually the point of having a review like this, you would think."

The analysis, performed by Medicare's Office of the Actuary, which in the past has been identified as a "nonpolitical" office, set off alarm bells when submitted. "We know a copy was sent to the White House via their legislative affairs staff," says the HHS staffer, "and there were a number of meetings here almost right after the analysis was submitted to the secretary's office. Everyone went into lockdown, and people here were too scared to go public with the report."

In the end, the report was released several weeks after the vote -- the review by the secretary's office reportedly took less than three days -- and bore a note that the analysis was not the official position of the Obama administration.