Trump: Texas made a 'fortune' after Hurricane Harvey
Trump meant it as a joke but one Houston state lawmaker is not laughing.
By NIC GARCIA/THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS/TNSU.S. President Donald Trump reacts during a campaign rally in Dallas, Texas, U.S., October 17, 2019(photo credit: JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS)
When President Donald Trump took the stage at American Airlines Center on Thursday, he rattled off a long list of how he thought Texas was better since he took office — including a big payout after Hurricane Harvey."You made a fortune on the hurricane!” Trump said, referring to the federal aid the state received after the Category 4 hurricane in 2017 killed more than 100 and left catastrophic flooding from southeast Texas into Central Texas. It caused more than $125 billion in damage.Trump meant it as a joke. But one Houston state lawmaker is not laughing.“I didn’t know disasters made money for people,” said Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Democrat. “It’s incentive to think there is a silver lining in a disaster when people still can not get back in their homes.”Coleman went further and said the money is not enough and not getting to Texas fast enough.“The pledge of those dollars from the federal government, it’s late,” he said.At the time, Trump’s response was criticized as being too aloof. Harvey was the first major disaster of his new administration.More recently, Gov. Greg Abbott proposed $12 billion for the “Ike Dike,”a coastal barrier to protect Galveston Bay from a storm surge. Named after the deadly and destructive Hurricane Ike in 2008, the project would protect the Port of Houston.The $12 billion is part of the $61 billion request for federal recovery aid after Hurricane Harvey.The Dallas Morning News' political writer Gromer Jeffers Jr. contributed to this report.
