Actually a natural disaster is no different than any other disaster in that it hurts Americans and requires aid to them. You say "through no fault of their own". Really? Who forced or imprisoned those people to live along the Eastern seaboard or the Gulf Coast? Who sentenced people to live in a hurricane prone area or a tornado alley? Who imprisoned the people along river flood plains? Who doomed innocent people to live on earthquake fault lines?
And what exactly are you punishing people in Detroit for that you want them to accept "the consequences of their actions"? Are they to be punished because they performed a job for thirty or forty years and fulfilled their end of that contract and now want the other party to uphold their end? That is something you condemn as a bad action?
Every place in the world is subject to natural disaster through no fault of the people living there. An asteroid can hit the earth anywhere, you are gonna blame people for living on the Earth for that are you? It is a false equivalent, and if you don't know it, you should. I live in an inland area of the south that had not been hit by a hurricane in 60 plus years. Then, in just one year, we got hit 3 times. So nobody should live in the entire South, is that it? Nobody should live in Kansas or Texas, nobody should live in NY or New Jersey, California, etc... nowhere, right?
Listen, if you keep electing people who have no idea what they are doing, whose fault it that?
I don't follow Detroit all that much but even without following it we all know its one of the most corrupt, crime ridden and mismanaged cities, obviously, in the entire USA... this coming from a time when, not too long ago in the 1950s, it was the wealthiest city in the US on a per capita basis. Juxtapose that with the current city of Detroit. If you live in a place that squanders its wealth and opportunity, if you elect people who squander, then you live where you squandered and you live in the squander [ or vote with your feet and move ...just don't bring your mismanagement to where I live ] until you can make it better.
You mismanage your life, your inheritance, your body and then you want us, neighbors close and distant, to make it all better for you? No. Don't make those mistakes in the first place. Takes, often, a bit of self denial, self discipline, a little work and effort. You folks keep on wanting to penalize us, those who do the right things, so as to let those who don't off the hook. If you have some guilty conscience for some reason, establish a fund where you can contribute to those who have created their own misery. I say, send a message that we won't help those who self inflict and so we all know, from the beginning, that it will be all up to those making the mistakes to make it better... and then, who knows, maybe people will start making better decisions on how to live their life. The side benefit to all that is that they will live a better and more fulfilling life.
Do you want to argue unions and pensions? How the unions achieved many victories in wages, benefits and pensions for their members, to the tune of these being Pyrrhic Victories, where the legacy costs of all these are making the companies they worked for less and less competitive, driving some out of business as these costs are unsustainable? Those taking these inordinately high wages, benefits and pensions that were nice at the time, but unsustainable. It was kind of a Faustian bargain...eh?
And what do you mean
I am punishing them? I had nothing to do with them or their decisions. I am just one that says you have to sleep in the bed you made for yourself. My house is messy right now... why don't you offer to come over and clean it up for me...oh, and next week too, and the week after, and...