"Fred Stone" <fstone69@earthling.com> wrote in message
news:1126186291.4dcaa8132c58caa99c112d779f608258@teranews...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702462.html

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; Page 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.

The comparison to California is pointless. It's the Mississippi,
stupid. The Mississippi is a giant, relentless, unceasing earth-moving
machine.

This is not to say that a $748 Billion lock to handle declining
traffic makes a ton of sense, either.

Why are we wasting money? Bush, who has lambasted "wasteful"
Democrats and "tax and spend Liberals" (from whic President he
inherited a surplus) during so many campaign speeches (by invitation
only, general citizenry not welcome) has had his own pet Congress and
submitted 4 budgets of his own devising. However, he's consistently
delivered $300+Billion deficits (which he likes to blame on a war that
he then says is costing very little).

Why haven't these NeoCons shown those ousted "tax-and-spend liberals"
how responsible government works?

What party is the party of "fiscal responsibility?"

And, squirm all you want, but it was the Administration that gutted
the flood-control aspects of the Corps programs since 2001. They'll
support the pork but they won't support disaster avoidance.

Fred Stone a écrit :

Money Flowed to Questionable Projects State Leads in Army Corps
Spending, but Millions Had Nothing to Do With Floods

Yeah, and what could republicans do about this? They only control
the White House, House of Representatives, the Senate and the
Supreme Court.

It's not like they have ANY responsibility at all!

On Thu, 08 Sep 2005 13:31:31 GMT, Fred Stone <fstone69@earthling.com>
wrote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702462.html

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; Page 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...

So, Bush was stupid when he cut the projects for flood control, but
allowed a project to help businesses to go on spending money.

Figures.