A Can't-Do Government
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three
most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack
on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane
strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The
Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of
all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now
happening.

So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard
questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried
under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.

First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive?
Katrina hit five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday
that Katrina could do immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the
response you'd expect from an advanced country never happened.
Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to
evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out
without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any
help at all.

There will and should be many questions about the response of state
and local governments; in particular, couldn't they have done more to
help the poor and sick escape? But the evidence points, above all, to
a stunning lack of both preparation and urgency in the federal
government's response.

Even military resources in the right place weren't ordered into
action. "On Wednesday," said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi,
Miss., "reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival
at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish
Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and
performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing
calisthenics!"

Maybe administration officials believed that the local National Guard
could keep order and deliver relief. But many members of the National
Guard and much of its equipment - including high-water vehicles - are
in Iraq. "The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support
the homeland security mission," a Louisiana Guard officer told
reporters several weeks ago.

Second question: Why wasn't more preventive action taken? After 2003
the Army Corps of Engineers sharply slowed its flood-control work,
including work on sinking levees. "The corps," an Editor and Publisher
article says, citing a series of articles in The Times-Picayune in New
Orleans, "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of
the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same
time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain."

In 2002 the corps' chief resigned, reportedly under threat of being
fired, after he criticized the administration's proposed cuts in the
corps' budget, including flood-control spending.

Third question: Did the Bush administration destroy FEMA's
effectiveness? The administration has, by all accounts, treated the
emergency management agency like an unwanted stepchild, leading to a
mass exodus of experienced professionals.

Last year James Lee Witt, who won bipartisan praise for his leadership
of the agency during the Clinton years, said at a Congressional
hearing: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to
prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear
from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders
nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now
disappeared."

I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the
military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe,
the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of
Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in
Iraq didn't get adequate armor.

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't
serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like
waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in
need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for
shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody
expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated
warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do
government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it
makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

E-mail:

The Bush 'balanced' budget: 1.6 trillion and worsening
The Bush 'economic' policy: 12.5 million FEWER jobs than Clinton and

The Bush Iraq lie: -1881 GIs, one friend's co-worker's son and mounting

Having Bush ***** up my country: Worthless

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02krugman.html?ex=1126324800&en=73a1bb38aa83825e&ei=5070&emc=eta1

A Can't-Do Government
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three
most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack
on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane
strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The
Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of
all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now
happening.

So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard
questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried
under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.

First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive?
Katrina hit five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday
that Katrina could do immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the
response you'd expect from an advanced country never happened.
Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to
evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out
without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any
help at all.

There will and should be many questions about the response of state
and local governments; in particular, couldn't they have done more to
help the poor and sick escape? But the evidence points, above all, to
a stunning lack of both preparation and urgency in the federal
government's response.

Even military resources in the right place weren't ordered into
action. "On Wednesday," said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi,
Miss., "reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival
at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish
Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and
performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and performing
calisthenics!"

Maybe administration officials believed that the local National Guard
could keep order and deliver relief. But many members of the National
Guard and much of its equipment - including high-water vehicles - are
in Iraq. "The National Guard needs that equipment back home to support
the homeland security mission," a Louisiana Guard officer told
reporters several weeks ago.

Second question: Why wasn't more preventive action taken? After 2003
the Army Corps of Engineers sharply slowed its flood-control work,
including work on sinking levees. "The corps," an Editor and Publisher
article says, citing a series of articles in The Times-Picayune in New
Orleans, "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of
the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same
time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain."

In 2002 the corps' chief resigned, reportedly under threat of being
fired, after he criticized the administration's proposed cuts in the
corps' budget, including flood-control spending.

Third question: Did the Bush administration destroy FEMA's
effectiveness? The administration has, by all accounts, treated the
emergency management agency like an unwanted stepchild, leading to a
mass exodus of experienced professionals.

Last year James Lee Witt, who won bipartisan praise for his leadership
of the agency during the Clinton years, said at a Congressional
hearing: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to
prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear
from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders
nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now
disappeared."

I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the
military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe,
the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of
Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in
Iraq didn't get adequate armor.

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't
serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like
waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in
need or spending on preventive measures. And they never, ever ask for
shared sacrifice.

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic claim: that nobody
expected the breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated
warnings about exactly that risk.

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do
government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it
makes those excuses, Americans are dying.

E-mail: