Ah, sorry for overgeneralizing. I meant the state governments of course. I forgot that they're separated very much from the national government. Well, the same thing goes for Europe really. EU government is still separated from national governments. And people here complained about all the money going to rescuing Greece from bankruptcy too, so that phenomenon is familiar as well.
As for the flood protection thing, from Maxine's description it seemed that flooding of some extent is fairly common there. I just assumed people would do the same thing over there as has been done here. Your feet get wet, you increase the height/width of the dikes you're behind, build better drainage pumps, etc.
Sorry for making bad assumptions
