Beware big government bearing gifts.

Obama slimed his way for a second disastrous term by exploiting Hurricane Sandy and making it looked like he cared, even though the actual response was a whirlwind of incompetence. He hugged Sandy victims and then ignored them. He posed for photos with the equally cynical Chris Christie.

Meanwhile FEMA was less about helping people than running what looked suspiciously like an election campaign.

“Everyone asked, ‘Do we have to pay this back later on? Is it a loan?’ They said, ‘No. It’s a gift from Obama,’ ” he said.

Like all gifts from Obama, this one turned out to be a bit of a Trojan horse.

The disabled, elderly and mostly poor residents of an assisted-living center in Queens spent four miserable months in shelters after Hurricane Sandy, and now they’re getting hammered again — by the federal government.

The residents of Belle Harbor Manor in Rockaway Park recently got notices from the Federal Emergency Management Agency saying they were being retroactively declared ineligible for aid funds they received two years ago in the storm’s aftermath.

The problem, the letters said, was that the money, the letters said, was supposed to have been spent on temporary housing, but there was no need for it because the residents were put in state-funded emergency shelters.

FEMA gave resident Robert Rosenberg, 61, until Nov. 15 to send a refund check for $2,486 or file an appeal.

“We’re on a fixed income. I don’t have that kind of money!” said Rosenberg, who suffers from a spinal disability and other chronic health woes.

“If I wasn’t eligible, then why give it to me in the first place? They knew we were living in an adult home. They knew our shelter was being paid for by the state. It’s not like we lied on the application.”

Because bureaucracies have a mission to hand out X amount of cash, and in this case apparently illegally electioneer. But then the other arm decided to take the money back because it now has a mission to fight fraud, even though it largely committed the fraud.

That isn’t even Obama. This is how government bureaucracies work, which is why they shouldn’t have any more power than they absolutely need to.

The state then moved the residents, many of whom suffer from mild mental illnesses, to a halfway house on the grounds of a partly-abandoned psychiatric hospital in Queens, where they bunked on cots and were barred from having visitors in their rooms.
FEMA spokesman Rafael Lemaitre said the agency was required by law to recoup improper payments, but he did not directly address the residents’ situation.

“FEMA remains committed to working with applicants and ensuring they have an understanding of the options available to resolve their debt, which includes making a payment, filling an appeal, requesting a compromise and establishing a payment plan,” he said.

I’m guessing that there isn’t going to be any money because elderly mentally ill disabled people living in a group hope aren’t going to be writing any big checks any time soon.

But the bureaucrats will have a metric of fraud they exposed and pursued and received judgments for. And then after spending a small fortune uselessly pursuing this, they’ll hand out the next “gift from Obama” and the cycle will repeat all over again.

That’s just how government works.