Louisiana: Coming soon, to a neighborhood near you
Miss Julie and I are residents of Louisiana...and you might as well be, too.
The difference is, we're grappling with Bush's response to a mega-disaster RIGHT NOW, whereas you can only HOPE he'll be there when YOU need him.
The Bush administration has requested or received approval from Congress for $3.5 billion in levee improvements, and none of those plans require state contributions. At the same time, fiscal conservatives have grown increasingly impatient with the growth of federal spending.Yeah, I can hear some of you thinking, "Well, gosh, it was a natural disaster. What does that have to do with Bush?" Well, if you didn't know what happened, the devastation would SEEM as though it were caused by a suitcase nuke. Seriously. Watch the video below.Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) mocked the request for state funding toward the additional $2.5 billion and said the administration should say when it will ask for the money.
"It's like the man who throws you a 30-foot rope when you're drowning 50 feet from shore and says he's gone more than halfway," said Landrieu, who has vowed to block Senate action on Bush nominations to non-defense and judicial posts until the issue is resolved. "A noble gesture, perhaps, but it doesn't get the job done."
The announcement also leaves unresolved the fate of lower Plaquemines Parish, a rural strip of land that counted nearly 15,000 residents before the storm.
Administration officials said they are still weighing whether to spend an additional $1.6 billion for levee improvements there.
That said, would Bush's response, the rubber-stamp Republican Congress' response, would their response have been any different had we been struck by terrorists?
If your answer is yes, then what the hell are you thinking? The houses are just as damaged; the levees are just as devastated; the people are just as dead; the homeless still don't have a place to live.
If the answer is no, then you might as well get used to the idea that Louisiana is coming soon, to a neighborhood near you.
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Categories: 2006 Elections
, Hurricane Katrina
, Louisiana
, Republicans
, Terrorism
Comments
Just heartbreaking, Ara.
But it wasn't a natural disaster, it was an act of man. An act of incompetent engineering, enabled by political corruption. Unfortunately, the tip of the iceberg, where the Army Corps of Engineers and their political handlers are concerned.
Posted by: shep![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.rubyan.com/politics/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 13, 2006 10:25 AM
Shep, the fact is that the National Response Plan does not make any distinctions between disasters that are man-made, natural, or caused by negligence. I know how it's supposed to work -- I'm in this business.
Here's the deal:
By definition, when the aftershock is this big it becomes "national." And that means the Feds have a directive and a mandate to "respond." There are some verrrrry elaborate plans in place to hasten the response.
In brief: Respond first, ask questions later.
We saw Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. We saw that the aftershock was/is just as bad as that from a suitcase nuke.
Respond first, ask questions later.
P.S. I don't disagree with your observations about the USACE. I'm reading Rising Tide the story of the Mississippi Flood of 1927. The history of the USACE on the Mississippi goes back to the mid-19th century and it isn't very pretty.
Posted by: Ara Rubyan![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.rubyan.com/politics/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 13, 2006 11:08 AM
Ara,
WaPo had a 5-part series on the corps' more recent crimes back in 2000 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/specials/aroundthenation/corpsofengineers). It also wasn’t pretty, to be kind.
I wasn’t suggesting the “man-made” nature (so to speak) of the disaster, took the feds off the hook. Quite the reverse, not knowing what the National Response Plan has to say, one way or the other, I’d say it is the federal government’s sole responsibility to either put New Orleans back the way it was or reconstruct it more rationally, according to a plan approved by the people of Louisiana.
Getting Louisianans to decide on a plan, by the way, seems a more difficult obstacle than funding the project.
Posted by: shep![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.rubyan.com/politics/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 13, 2006 03:48 PM