Louisiana bill should be scrapped

Waterbury Republican-American ^ | Editorial

[Graybeard58]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finally has pumped all the water out of New Orleans, nearly two months after Hurricane Katrina.

Now what?

About 50,000 households representing nearly 4 out of every 10 residents of New Orleans say they aren't returning. They're the smart ones. After Katrina, the sanest thing for families to do is salvage what they can and start their lives over, preferably above sea level and in a place less rotten to the core than New Orleans.

Their departure, however, has left the inmates to run the asylum. Louisiana's congressional delegation got the insanity started in a big way by trying to shake down U.S. taxpayers for $250 billion for "reconstruction costs." That's about $2,000 per U.S. household. That's on top of the $62.3 billion in emergency relief previously received, which is in addition to the $100 billion for insured losses and the billions given by charities and generous Americans.

Louisiana's proposed contribution to its future? $0. Apparently, starving people who steal TVs, jewelry and guns aren't Louisiana's only looters.

If $250 billion seems like a lot to stand up a city so it can be knocked down again by the next powerful hurricane, consider how the money would be apportioned: $35 million for the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board; $8 million for alligator farmers; $25.5 million for sugarcane research; $19 million for a public Internet network in New Orleans; $100 million for substance-abuse programs; $600 million for early childhood education; $5 billion to expand road and mass-transit capacity. The delegation also expects U.S. taxpayers to reimburse the city and Louisiana for all their lost tax revenues and cover losses incurred by companies and homeowners too cheap or stupid to have insurance.

The measure also provides $40 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers, mostly for expenses unrelated to flood control, including billions for two projects that have failed cost-benefit analyses. Forty billion is 16 times what the profligate Corps says it needs to build infrastructure strong enough to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane.

And no lunacy would be complete without an autocracy to oversee it: "the Pelican Commission," dominated by crooked Louisiana politicians, the same folks whose corruption and patronage that made the Katrina calamity inevitable.

But the insanity is spreading. The Corps is spending tens of millions to fix damaged levies while it waits for Congress to allocate $3 billion to rebuild them from scratch. Bureaucratic rules and protocol, it seems, prevent the Corps from doing the job right the first time.

Blame President Bush for emboldening Louisiana lawmakers by promising to spare no expense. Basically, he gave them a blank check and they filled in a very, very big number.

Apparently, it was too much to hope that politicians would assess the damage dispassionately and craft the most logical, cost-effective reconstruction plan possible. Instead, they are trying to exploit tragedy and the generosity of Americans with a bill loaded with more pork than the last federal transportation, energy and farm bills combined.

Congress would do well to scrap the Louisiana bill in favor of one that makes sense. It should pass legislation that abandons vast areas of southern Louisiana to nature, prohibits human resettlement in sub-sea-level acres, relies heavily on independent oversight to minimize the possibility of fraud, abuse, corruption and waste, and most of all gives displaced families a hand up, not a handout.

[Moral Hazard]

"Their departure, however, has left the inmates to run the asylum. Louisiana's congressional delegation got the insanity started in a big way by trying to shake down U.S. taxpayers for $250 billion for "reconstruction costs.""

Too bad this didn't happen in 2009: Then the census would reapportion most of them out of a job.

[Clara Lou]

Congress would do well to scrap the Louisiana bill in favor of one that makes sense.
I guess the Waterbury Republican-American fogot that Congress is full of politicians. Why would Congress do anything senisble?

[GeorgiaDawg32]

"If $250 billion seems like a lot to stand up a city so it can be knocked down again by the next powerful hurricane, consider how the money would be apportioned: $35 million for the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board; $8 million for alligator farmers; $25.5 million for sugarcane research; $19 million for a public Internet network in New Orleans; $100 million for substance-abuse programs; $600 million for early childhood education; $5 billion to expand road and mass-transit capacity"

They forgot to add in the 3 billion that goes into the pockets of local/state politicians..some traditions must go on..

[H. Paul Pressler IV]

I wonder what the reaction would have been if Bill Clinton had proposed spending a quarter of a trillion dollars to rebuild New Orleans?

[Cautor]

"I wonder what the reaction would have been if Bill Clinton had proposed spending a quarter of a trillion dollars to rebuild New Orleans?"

I assume that's a rhetorical question. [;o)

[ryan71]

This is a hellova mess...And this is just the beginning.

[H. Paul Pressler IV]

Interestingly, the author did not bother to mention the man who proposed all this spending until the third from last paragraph!

[Graybeard58]

I wonder what the reaction would have been if Bill Clinton had proposed spending a quarter of a trillion dollars to rebuild New Orleans?

I don't see too many people around here who are happy with G.W.B.s spending proposals.

[H. Paul Pressler IV]

There is just not the sense of Anger that I would expect from the Conservative Base.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

They should just leave the ghetto areas nobody is going to move back too and lowest areas flooded and rebuild the levee system with new borders that gives more space to the mississippi. Rebuilding those canals are a big waste of money and resources.

[Cautor]

I can tell you I am very, very angry about proposals to spend that kind of money on NO/LA and the crooked pols there. If Bush pushes this he is beyond reprehensible.

[carl in alaska]

Why do you say that Bush "proposed all this spending"? Bush wants to spend whatever is necessary to rebuild Louisiana and Mississippi, but he never proposed all of this pork-barrel spending in Louisiana on community block grants, substance abuse programs, etc. That proposal is by Senator Landrieu of Louisiana. At one time the details of this bill were on her website. I'll take a look and see if the details are still there. Sean Hannity trashed this spending plan really hard on his show so I'm not sure it's still out on the web.

As far as anger goes, I promise you I will not be too happy if Bush signs this kind of a bill filled with pork for Lousiana. The White House needs to trim the fat out of this bill and just spend what we need to spend to rebuild the roads, clean up debris from the hurricane and flood, and rebuild government facilities. As for Alaska, I'm all in favor of eliminating the spending on bridges to uninhabited islands up here.