EXAMPLE 7 Now that’s relief!

Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005 and caused massive destruction. In September 2005, Senators Mary Landrieu (Democrat) and David Vitter (Republican) of Louisiana introduced the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act in Congress. This bill sought a total of $250 billion in federal funds to provide long-term relief and assistance to the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Not all of this was to be spent on New Orleans alone, and the money was not meant to be distributed directly to residents affected by the hurricane. However, at the time, several people noticed that if you were one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans, $250 billion in federal funds was the equivalent of

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This would mean that a family of four would receive about $2,063,240!