# Bush Approves $51.8 Billion for Relief



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

Just read in the paper that Bush has approved $51.8 BILLION for relief efforts.

I wonder how much he cut from the Corps budget that would have included extra funds to raise the dike levels for a category 5 hurricane like they had asked??

hmmmm.........


----------



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

According to Corp of engineers own admission the moneys cut from the budget for levy work was not budgeted for any changes to the levies that failed so even if it was spent it would of had absolutely no effect on the outcome.

They never intended to build any of the levies for a category 5, this decision was based on computer modeling that gave the chance of a category 5 hitting at 1/2 of 1 percent less than one every 200 years.

That enough hmmmmmmmm for your wondering? :lol:


----------



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

This is an article that will help showcase the problem of federal VS state jurisdiction and the beaurocratic snafus that result

http://makeashorterlink.com/?V2B2624CB


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Yup Bob, I read the same thing. The media has said it over and over. You have to be not watching the news to not know it. How do people form opinions without information?

I am glad to see the liberals keep harping about Bush and the hurricane. I see the news said the public is getting tired of it. No one believes that any one person could be responsible, and a backlash is occurring because of the blame game. So my advise is keep it up and make the public really sick of the liberal bickering.

Hmmmm I love it when they think after they talk.


----------



## racer66 (Oct 6, 2003)

Dang it their plan is being foiled again. Keep trying though L2H.


----------



## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

This was reported on the Britt Hume News Hour last night........

"Democrats, and some former government engineers, blamed President Bush for cutting the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers (search), claiming the cuts left New Orleans unprepared for a major storm.

But The Washington Post reports the Bush administration has granted the corps more funding than the previous administration over a similar period and that Louisiana has received far more money for civil works projects than any other state. The paper says much of the funding has been spent not on flood control, but on lawmakers' pet construction projects, including a brand new $750 million canal lock in New Orleans unrelated to flood control".

and..................

"Neither the administration or its critics are saying this, but one reason anti-flooding measures failed to stop Katrina from inundating New Orleans is that some environmental groups successfully resisted new flood control projects. The Sierra Club and other groups sued the Army Corps of Engineers to stop a 1996 plan to raise and fortify Mississippi River levees because the plan would jeopardize Louisiana forests.

And the New Orleans Times-Picayune has reported that "Save our Wetlands" successfully sued the corps of engineers three decades ago to stop construction on floodgates to block storm surges from the Gulf of Mexico into Lake Pontchatrain, saying they were too damaging to the lake's eco-system".

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168846,00.html


----------



## the_rookie (Nov 22, 2004)

what the democrats fail to realize is its not bushes fault... there needs to be a wait before the national guard can be activated yes its bad but it takes the national guard a few days to get there depending on where they live duh


----------



## Jiffy (Apr 22, 2005)

4 days????? When I was in the Corps. We could be activated and "in country" in 4 days!!!!!! Maybe we have gotten slow. Or maybe we were not ready????? Just a question......Or maybe our gov. got caught with their pants down. HHHHHMMMMMM.........imagine that!!!! Oh no, that would not happen in this "great nation"..... :lol: Come on!!!!


----------



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

Hello fellow republicans. Had to go shoot grouse this weekend. Boy it was hot out, but the birds cooperated.

New Orleans CityBusiness, Jun 6, 2005 by Deon Roberts

In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding.

It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said.

I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. I think part of the problem is it's not so much the reduction, it's the drastic reduction in one fiscal year. It's the immediacy of the reduction that I think is the hardest thing to adapt to.

There is an economic ripple effect, too. The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.

Money is so tight the New Orleans district, which employs 1,300 people, instituted a hiring freeze last month on all positions. The freeze is the first of its kind in about 10 years, said Marcia Demma, chief of the Corps' Programs Management Branch.

Stephen Jeselink, interim commander of the New Orleans Corps district, told employees in an internal e-mail dated May 25 that the district is experiencing financial challenges. Execution of our available funds must be dealt with through prudent districtwide management decisions.


----------



## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

Don't you people ever read anything or pay attention to what is being reported? Where is the 4 days coming from. The (National Guard) were mobilized and standing by in 24 hours after the storm. But they never received orders from the Governor. You do realize they are under the control of the Governor of the state don't you. The Coast Guard was on the scene and actually operating rescue missions the day after the Hurricane.


----------



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

The web is just full of these statistics.

Hurricane Protection A Low Priority For Bush- Think Progress.com

Below is a history of funding for the Lake Pontchartrain and Vincinity Hurricane Protection project. (Note: This was the levee system that broke. Due to lack of funding, major construction stopped in 2004 - the first such stoppage in 37 years.)

2004:

Army Corps request: $11 million 
Bush request: $3 million 
Approved by Congress: $5.5 million

2005:

Army Corps request: $22.5 million 
Bush request: $3.9 million 
Approved by Congress: $5.7 million

2006:

Bush request: $2.9 million [Link]

You know we all could find stats or reports that swing both ways. It all comes down to what you want to believe.

IMHO: Dikes and levees built the way they should have with the right amount of funding couldn't have prevented Katrina, but could have done some good.


----------



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Pork Pork Pork Pork thats all its about and now that they have been exposed somehow its Mr. Bush's fault, I'm fed up with bush and the republicans (over some issues) myself but there is no way this is his fault!
washingtonpost.com
Money Flowed to Questionable Projects
State Leads in Army Corps Spending, but Millions Had Nothing to Do With Floods

By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 8, 2005; A01

Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had already launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. *But the project had nothing to do with flood control.* The Corps was building a huge new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic.

Except that barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing.

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. *But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion*; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, *often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.* :eyeroll: 
For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) *tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill* :eyeroll: ordering the agency to redo its calculations :eyeroll: . The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast.

The Industrial Canal lock is one of the agency's most controversial projects, sued by residents of a New Orleans low-income black neighborhood and cited by an alliance of environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth-worst current Corps boondoggle. In 1998, the Corps justified its plan to build a new lock -- *rather than fix the old lock for a tiny fraction of the cost *-- by predicting huge increases in use by barges traveling between the Port of New Orleans and the Mississippi River.

*In fact, barge traffic on the canal had been plummeting since 1994*, but the Corps left that data out of its study. And barges have continued to avoid the canal since the study was finished, even though they are visiting the port in increased numbers.

Pam Dashiell, president of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, remembers holding a protest against the lock four years ago -- right where the levee broke Aug. 30. Now she's holed up with her family in a St. Louis hotel, and her neighborhood is underwater. "Our politicians never cared half as much about protecting us as they cared about pork," Dashiell said.

Yesterday, congressional defenders of the Corps said they hoped the fallout from Hurricane Katrina would pave the way for billions of dollars of additional spending on water projects. Steve Ellis, a Corps critic with Taxpayers for Common Sense, called their push "the legislative equivalent of looting."

Louisiana's politicians have requested much more money for New Orleans hurricane protection than the Bush administration has proposed or Congress has provided. In the last budget bill, Louisiana's delegation requested $27.1 million for shoring up levees around Lake Pontchartrain, the full amount the Corps had declared as its "project capability." Bush suggested $3.9 million, and Congress agreed to spend $5.7 million.

Administration officials also dramatically scaled back a long-term project to restore Louisiana's disappearing coastal marshes, which once provided a measure of natural hurricane protection for New Orleans. They ordered the Corps to stop work on a $14 billion plan, and devise a $2 billion plan instead.

*But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years.* Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were designed to protect against a Category 3 storm, and *the levees that failed were already completed projects.* Strock has also said that the marsh-restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands.

"The project manager for the Great Pyramids probably put in a request for 100 million shekels and only got 50 million," said John Paul Woodley Jr., the Bush administration official overseeing the Corps. "Flood protection is always a work in progress; on any given day, if you ask whether any community has all the protection it needs, the answer is almost always: Maybe, but maybe not."

The Corps had been studying the possibility of upgrading the New Orleans levees for a higher level of protection before Katrina hit, but Woodley said that study would not have been finished for years. Still, liberal bloggers, Democratic politicians and some GOP defenders of the Corps have linked the catastrophe to the underfunding of the agency. :eyeroll: :eyeroll: :eyeroll: :eyeroll: :eyeroll: :eyeroll:

"We've been hollering about funding for years, but everyone would say: There goes Louisiana again, asking for more money," said former Democratic senator John Breaux. "We've had some powerful people in powerful places, but we never got what we needed."

That may be true. But those powerful people -- including former senators Breaux, Johnston and Russell Long, as well as former House committee chairmen Robert Livingston and W.J. "Billy" Tauzin -- did get quite a bit of what they wanted. And the current delegation -- led by Landrieu and GOP Sen. David Vitter -- has continued that tradition.

The Senate's latest budget bill for the Corps included 107 Louisiana projects worth $596 million, including $15 million for the Industrial Canal lock, for which the Bush administration had proposed no funding. Landrieu said the bill would "accelerate our flood control, navigation and coastal protection programs." Vitter said he was "grateful that my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee were persuaded of the importance of these projects."

Louisiana not only leads the nation in overall Corps funding, it places second in new construction -- just behind Florida, home of an $8 billion project to restore the Everglades. Several controversial projects were improvements for the Port of New Orleans, an economic linchpin at the mouth of the Mississippi. There were also several efforts to deepen channel for oil and gas tankers, a priority for petroleum companies that drill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"We thought all the projects were important -- not just levees," Breaux said. "Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but navigation projects were critical to our economic survival."

Overall, Army Corps funding has remained relatively constant for decades, despite the "Program Growth Initiative" launched by agency generals in 1999 without telling their civilian bosses in the Clinton administration. The Bush administration has proposed cuts in the Corps budget, and has tried to shift the agency's emphasis from new construction to overdue maintenance. But most of those proposals have died quietly on Capitol Hill, and the administration has not fought too hard to revive them.

In fact, more than any other federal agency, the Corps is controlled by Congress; its $4.7 billion civil works budget consists almost entirely of "earmarks" inserted by individual legislators. The Corps must determine that the economic benefits of its projects exceed the costs, but marginal projects such as the Port of Iberia deepening -- which squeaked by with a 1.03 benefit-cost ratio -- are as eligible for funding as the New Orleans levees.

"It has been explicit national policy not to set priorities, but instead to build any flood control or barge project if the Corps decides the benefits exceed the costs by 1 cent," said Tim Searchinger, a senior attorney at Environmental Defense. "Saving New Orleans gets no more emphasis than draining wetlands to grow corn and soybeans."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company


----------



## Gun Owner (Sep 9, 2005)

live2hunt said:


> Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.


Ok, so let me get this straight....

3 months ago, funding for 2006 was cut. This resulted in the shelving of a study to learn about what a hurricane could do to New Orleans.

You're telling me that if Bush hadnt cut funding for 2006, the government of New Orleans would have finished their study and extensively modified the dikes and levies in an un-precedented 3 months in order to have prevented the New Orleans flood??


----------



## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

> 2004: Army Corps request: $11 million
> Bush request: $3 million
> Approved by Congress: $5.5 million
> 
> ...


No matter how hard I try I can't get the above figures to add up to the 1.9 billion below, even going back 5 years. Some of you have a different calculator maybe??????



> But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion


Funny also how some simply want to gloss over the


> Approved by Congress


 section. If you insist on blaming someone for low funding, which is not correct in the first place then point towards the place that APPROVED the funding and CONTROLS the funding.

Bob, the things in your post has been published here in this forum and in the media. But you know as well as I do the witch hunters will continue with their spin.



> After a little consideration this section removed to a new thread


----------



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

I think even if the levees were built to a category 5 hurricane, we still would have seen destruction. This was a terrible storm. how much more or less destruction, I am not God or a gypsy, so I wouldn't know.

But I do feel that some things could have been prevented. Overall I think our response and help has been too slow. If it is the Democratic Governor and Senator of Louisiana, then so be it. They need a butt chewing too then.

Our President is our country's leader. He is "Commander and Chief". If someone isn't doing their job, then he should be getting in the pile and making sure that Senator or Governer is.

So if it was Congress or Clinton or Bush or whoever that cut the funding for projects, then they all should be getting a butt ripping right now.


----------



## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

In the first place the levees were built only for a class 3 hurricane, not a class 5. Second place the budget was not cut. Yeah sure I know, someone is twisting words to make you think that but the funding was not cut. When the Army Corps of Engineers submits their budget request, just like all agencies it will request a total amount and then itemize where they wish to spend the money. The next step is the budget office will go over the list and make recommendations to trim back if the President wants a lower amount. Then both lists go to Congress. Congress then debates and then votes on the amount they think is appropriate, which could be more or less and when passed it is forwarded to the President to sign. Next the money is given to the Corps in a lump sum for the fiscal year budget. Now this is important if you really feel someone must be blamed.........the Corps then has the authority and the obligation to redistribute the money on projects that will do the best for all. In most cases they have done this and have even let other projects go in order to give the Port Authorities more money for levee repairs and upgrades. However, year after year the NO Port Authorities and in a lot of cases simply has blown the money on projects such as the new lock mentioned earlier which was not needed. Every time the Corps has given NO money in the name of economic growth which allowed them to hire civilian contractors to accomplish a job as requested, the money was spent on pork projects by the Governor, mayor and sometimes the state Senators. Bottom line...... the President did NOT personally cut funding for levee repair in New Orleans. They done that all by themselves...............

Seems everyone is failing to realize the eye of the hurricane didn't even hit New Orleans. Had it have done that the levees probable would have been breached in less than 3 hours by some estimates and you would be counting the bodies by the tens of thousands. Had the Governor called the National guard in prior to the hurricane hitting and ordered a mandatory evacuation instead of saying lets sleep on it for 24 hours , then turning around the next day and making it a volunteer evacuation instead of a mandatory evacuation then many more lives would have been saved. But, even if none of this had happened in the sequence that it did and everyone had gotten out, nothing was going to save a city sitting next to the ocean and 6 feet below sea level. New Orleans was a disaster wait to happen. I saw on the history channel last night where Galveston Texas was hit by a class 4 hurricane in 1900 and 6,000 people died. Wonder who they blamed that on, the disappearance of the Buffalo&#8230;&#8230;..


----------



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

Gohon:

If Gore was in office, you would be taking this same political stance correct?


----------



## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

> If Gore was in office, you would be taking this same political stance correct


Well you see that is the problem. I'm not taking a political stance. I wouldn't care if Gore was in office because the fact still stands that the President had little if anything to do with the blunders in New Orleans. Don't recall who it was but someone once said if you never make a mistake then you will never learn anything. Learning is the end result of mistakes. If we learn from this then maybe it won't happen again. If we are stupid enough to rebuild New Orleans in the same spot at 6 feet below sea level and expect a levee to hold back the seas, no matter how much money is spent or technology involved then we learned nothing and the waters will flood again. Don't confuse my refusal to repeat spin and gossip and defense of the present administration against said spin and gossip as a political position. Doesn't matter who is in the White House, finger pointing spin that is thrown out for political gains serves no useful purpose for any of us and should be pointed out when it rears it ugly head.


----------



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

> Our President is our country's leader. He is "Commander and Chief". If someone isn't doing their job, then he should be getting in the pile and making sure that Senator or Governer is.


Bush has no authority over the Senate (ever hear of the three branches of government) and very little over the govenors.

All the problem was and still is in lousianna they knew the situation and have known it for at least the last 40 or 50 years and decided to spend money on pork instead of dealing with the big problem. Lousianna especially New Orleans is a perfect example of the result you get with a Liberal Democrat government controlling things as they have in Louisianna for at least the last 150 years. No accountability and all their problems are supposedly some elses fault. They didn't evacuate, they decided to spend all the money they had recieved on pork projects instead of better levies ( the article abaove has their own citizens complaining about this) and now that the worst has finally and ineveitably happened they want someone else to fix it and take the responsibility for their mistake. THIS IS THE PERFECT SHOWCASE OF THE WAY LIBERALS THINK, OR DON'T. In their minds they are never reponsible for themselves and this situation has really shined the light of truth on that.


----------



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

In a speech today, Bush apologizied for the lack of response of the Federal Govt. in wake of Katrina.

In my book that deserves some respect.

Based on information of what others have posted here, I would hope that the Senator(s) and Governor of Louisiana would do the same. If not, they don't deserve to be in office.


----------



## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

I watched the Presidents speech today and he did not apologize......

What he said was "Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government. To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility."


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I just finished watching Howard Dean on TV. I sure am glad he is heading the democratic party. That should ensure another republican victory. The man plays the blame game like a third grader. I don't know if the man has lost his mind, or if he really thinks there are people stupid enough to believe what he says. Listening to him is an insult to intelligence.

I certainly hope Bush didn't apologize. I don't respect wimps that apologize for something they had nothing to do with. All he can do is chastise and can the idiots (the federal ones) after the fact. There isn't much he can do about the mayor of New Orleans who was to stupid to implement the evacuation plan. He also can't do much about the governor who is more concerned about her authority over the national guard than actually accomplishing anything. Unless anyone here considers firearms confiscation from innocent citizens and accomplishment.


----------



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

How nice. I guess I could spit in your eye and take responsibility for it, but not apologize. interesting concept.

Plainsmen: You are correct. Chastise and can the idiots. I am all for it whether Republican or Democrat. if you aren't doing the job, then get someone in there that can.

Common sense tells me that the all lines of the govt. missed the boat on this one. Federal, state, and local. The Governor down there based on what has been said here and what I have read on the web needs to move to another country or something. I can't believe some of the politicians we put into office.

Although it seems like I hate Bush, I guess I am just disappointed in the way he is running the country. I can't imagine Gore would have done any better, and if Hiliary gets in.....God help us.


----------



## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

> How nice. I guess I could spit in your eye and take responsibility for it, but not apologize. interesting concept.


There would be no need to. Once I ripped your lips off there would be no more spitting. On the other had if your neighbor spits on another neighbor, do you apologize for the first neighbor. Get real............


----------



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

"rip my lips off"...I guess everyone has a dream.


----------



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

> How nice. I guess I could spit in your eye and take responsibility for it, but not apologize. interesting concept


.

Your analogy is not correct. It would be more like this. You and I go hunting, and you bring your nephew with. He spits in my face. You brought him with, but you don't need to apologize because your nephew is a twerp.

Currently on TV after the presidents speech they are asking residence of New Orleans who they blame. Also check the article in the Jamestown sun who interviewed flood victims living with families in Jamewstown. They don't blame Bush either. They said their home is not destroyed, their daughters home is not destroyed, and not all portions of the city are flooded. Now why would the media exaggerate? Oh, ya thats right, it's Bush's fault, lay it on. Do you rememer the mayor say thousands were dead in New Orleans? I remember it. Now we are just over 700 throughout the south. Another exaggeration.

We have learned that local politicians used money for flooding for other pet projects. Big surprise. Remember the tobacco money that came to North Dakota? Not a single politician suggested using it for health care as the law suite intended. They recommended building an outlet from Devils Lake to the Sheyenne which violated treaty with Canada. So guess what, we now have a outlet pumping to the Sheyenne. They evidently don't give a rats behind about Valley City, Fargo, Grand Forks, or Winnipeg. Plug channel A would be a better start. The other proposal was use it for teacher pay raises. How hard is it to believe the locals down south bled off flood protection money. Now they want to blame someone else.


----------



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

Plainsmen: After kicking my nephews a$$ for being a twerp, I would make him apologize to you.

I will admit some fault on this post. At first glance it appears I am blaming Bush for everything. I am not. Many of you sited some great information and in doing some research of my own I think IMHO that there were many that dropped the bomb on this one including the federal govt. I also think the Governor of LO should be hog tied and sent off to a deserted island.

We are the most powerful country in the world. the richest, and probably the smartest. We knew this hurricane was coming and I just feel (IMHO) that we were too slow to react on this. That is it.

I watched the speech last night. If Bush does what he says and a bunch of Demo's dont' cause problems, then I think things will go well.

The media on ABC really tried to downplay Bush's speech after he gave it. They tried cornering people on the streets and asked absolutely stupid questions trying to get people to say they were ****** at Bush. I thought that was terrible. At that point, I turned off the TV.

All in all we should have seen this coming and had better plans in place. that isn't Bush's fault. But I still feel that the reaction to this horrific event from all levels of govt. was too slow.

Glad to see that $60 billion will be going to the area. Better than going to a war.

You mentioned the DL outlet. Start another post, I am all for pumping. Valley City is giving you the wrong information.


----------



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

5 part story click on day 1, day 2, ect.

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/?/washingaway/


----------



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

This is how the hurricane relief should be paid for

http://www.cagw.org/site/FrameSet?style ... ?pigyear=5


----------



## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

Dammable pork
by John Stossel

September 21, 2005

When your TV column is titled "Give Me a Break," it's hard to know where to begin after Katrina.

First I thought I'd say, "give me a break" to the looters. Then to Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, since National Guard troops were available, but she wouldn't let them help. Then came the Internet scams. Some people who thought they gave for hurricane relief actually gave money to crooks in Brazil.

The government's responsibility, though, dwarfs anything done by criminals. To start, the federal government invited disaster by offering cheap insurance. That encourages people to build on the coasts. I'm embarrassed to admit I once built a house on a beach in Westhampton, N.Y., because government insurance guaranteed I couldn't lose. When a storm washed my house away, government paid me for my loss. It would have covered me again and again had I rebuilt. (I sold the land.) Government insurance is truly an insane policy.

Then came the bureaucratic obstacles. While New Orleans hospitals had no electricity, the U.S.S. Bataan sat just off the coast, equipped with six unused operating rooms and hundreds of hospital beds. Its commander said she could do nothing because she hadn't received a signed authorization. It's reasonable to worry about getting the armed forces involved in law enforcement, but where's the threat to the Constitution if, in the middle of a disaster, a Navy doctor saves your life?

In other cases, private enterprise tried to help, but government got in the way. Wal-Mart offered truckloads of water, but was turned away by federal bureaucrats.

Dr. Jeffrey Guy, a Nashville trauma surgeon, recruited 400 doctors, nurses and first responders to help the people in New Orleans. Then FEMA gave them something to do: fill out 60-page applications that demanded photographs and tax forms.

Guy received an e-mail from an emergency room doctor in Mississippi who needed bandages, splints and medicine, and coloring books for children. Guy had them -- he'd been collecting corporate donations -- but FEMA said they needed two state permits to transport these items from Tennessee to Mississippi. The supplies were only sent when two guys showed up with a church van and volunteered to take them -- as rogue responders without FEMA's permission.

The deadliest government mistake was made by Congress. The Army Corps of Engineers had said it wanted $27 million to strengthen the levees protecting New Orleans. *Congress said no, though our can't-spend-your-money-fast-enough representatives did appropriate more than that for an indoor rain forest in Iowa.*

Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, blamed the president. "The president could have funded it," she said.

Someday, she should read the Constitution. Only Congress can appropriate federal money.  :withstupid: 
Former Louisiana senator John Breaux also told me the state never got what it asked for. "I'm part of the effort to try and get more money, and many times we were not successful," he complained.

But, surprise! It turns out Louisiana got lots of money for Corps of Engineers projects -- hundreds of millions of dollars more than any other state. *Congress just spent it on pork projects instead of on the levees.* I confronted Breaux about his own state's pork, such as subsidies for ship builders and the sugar industry.

"I object to you using words like squander and pork," he said. "What is pork in one part of the country is an essential project in another part." :eyeroll:

It's a reason Americans shouldn't filter so much money through Washington. Louisianans don't need Iowa rain forests, and Iowans don't need levees in Louisiana. Maybe the people who want to live in New Orleans should have to pay (through private enterprise or local taxes) the special costs of its exposed location -- or live elsewhere. If all local projects, essential and whimsical, were paid for with local taxes, competition among states and cities would force them to become more efficient.


----------

