Andy and Sandy

I live about two blocks away from the water, which is nice, except when it comes to visit you. During Hurricane Sandy, it did that in a big way. My living room, kitchen and dining room were full of water. However, I had flood insurance, and it actually paid us to fix the house.

So when I got an application from NY Rising last April, I didn't bother to fill it out. After all, my house was fixed. We have new floors, new walls, new paint, and I went crazy and replaced the ceiling too, adding lights and all sorts of cool things. We even replaced my framed picture of Boris and Natasha with something that more resembles art.

Like everyone around here, we hope that we won't get another Sandy. One way to minimize damage in areas like ours is to raise your house up. When we first moved here there was a federal program that paid for maybe 70% of that, but given we were flat broke, laying out 30K was out of the question. Now the feds pay 30K max, so we'd have to lay out at least 70K. Kind of pricy to fix something for which you're insured.

But lo and behold, Governor Andy came to my town and announced that he had 300 million dollars to raise homes. Now before he was paying only to raise homes that were required to be raised. But now, he was paying to raise homes like mine that faced no such requirement. This sounded like a great idea.

But when I called NY Rising, it turned out I wasn't eligible. Stupid me, not applying for money I didn't need to fix my home that was already fixed. You see, in Andrew Cuomo's world you need to apply in April in order to be eligible for programs he announces in July. How reckless of me to not ask for money I didn't need. What a galoot I was to pay insurance premiums for 20 years rather than just sit around and hope for the best.

But I guess Governor Cuomo gets what he wants. He can be a big hero with our tax money and roll out a program that doesn't help many of those of us who need it. Rob Astorino criticized Cuomo for waiting until election time to help people, but actually Governor Cuomo's helping as few people as he possibly can.

Because every cent he fritters away on helping flood victims is one less cent to devote to lowering the tax bills of Mike Bloomberg, Cathie Black, Campbell Brown, Eva Moskowitz, and all the other people who know how to appreciate every darn cent they can get.