http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000250.htm
September 15, 2005
Bush's Katrina Cop Out
by Pensacola Pete
The President's prime-time "Katrina Comeback" address was vintage
Bush. http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/15/katrina-speech-text/
Primarily designed to help him, and not the Gulf States, recover from
his administration’s disastrous bungling of the Katrina response,
Bush's speech offered to shower money on the devastated South.
But in his typical fashion, George W. Bush held no one accountable and
shunned independent oversight of the response and the rebuilding.
Most of all, the Free Lunch President refused to ask the American
people to pay for it.
Let's start with America’s pocketbook.
The costs to rebuild the Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi are
staggering.
President Bush estimated the budget would top $200 billion.
(Congress has already appropriated over $60 billion.)
A proposed reconstruction program offered by the Louisiana
congressional delegation would easily top $100 billion, with $50
billion in community development grants and $34 billion in coastal and
levee maintenance and protection programs.
http://www.cleveland.com/newsflash/national/index.ssf?/base/news-19/112680594115391.xml&storylist=katrina
The American public is prepared to dig deep to pay those costs.
56% of those surveyed in a CBS/New York Times poll said they would pay
more in taxes to fund the Katrina recovery.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/14/opinion/polls/main846529.shtml
A whopping 73% of respondents claimed that rebuilding New Orleans was
more important than cutting taxes.
But just as in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, President
Bush asked for no sacrifices from Americans willing and ready to make
them. http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000248.htm
Unsurprisingly, Bush did not call for the new taxes to fund his
Katrina recovery program.
Inexcusably, Bush said nothing about the postponement of further tax
cuts during a time of war, national disaster recovery and endless $300
billion deficits.
Instead, the President and his party will seek to make his 2003 tax
cuts permanent, including the repeal of estate tax.
http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000244.htm
This may be New Orleans’ time of need, but for President Bush,
America's wealthiest are needier still.
Making matters worse is the absence of safeguards in Bush's address to
protect against the cronyism, fraud, and corruption so endemic in his
administration.
President Bush's team has a proven track record of budgetary chaos and
sweetheart deals when such massive rebuilding budgets are involved.
$9 billion went missing during the reign of Paul Bremer’s Coalition
Provisional Authority in Iraq.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/
During the $12 billion Florida hurricane recovery process in election
year 2004, the FEMA of George Bush and Michael Brown spent over $30
million on an untouched Miami-Dade County, and paid for hundreds of
funerals despite a statewide death toll of roughly 100 people.
http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000246.htm
Already, Bush and GOP friends Halliburton, Bechtel and firms
represented by former FEMA Joe Allbaugh
http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/content/shared/news/nation/stories/09/0915_COXKATRINA_CLEANUP.html
have received contracts for Katrina rebuilding
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050913/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/katrina_contracts_5,
a development that does not augur well for American taxpayers.
In sharp contrast with the President's lone mention of a team of
inspectors general, the "Marshall Plan for the Gulf Coast" offered by
Harry Reid and Senate Democrats rightly includes an "ethics watchdog"
to prevent the kind of fraud that President Bush is inviting.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/15/katrina.democrats/index.html?section=cnn_latest
Perhaps most glaring in the Bush address, though, was the President’s
refusal to take accountability for the calamitous response of his
government to Katrina.
While the President claimed "I want to know all the facts" and that "I
am responsible for the problem and for the solution," no Bush
administration official has been fired.
None has been sacked, not even ex-FEMA head Michael Brown or his boss,
Michael Chertoff, the DHS Secretary who waited two days until after
Katrina hit to issue a memo naming Brown as the point man for the
federal response.
http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=240948&source=r_general
Typically, President Bush did not call for an independent commission.
(As in the cases of 9/11 and Iraq WMD intelligence, rest assured he
will quietly flip-flop later, limiting the scope and timing of the
investigations, and then coopting credit for the findings.)
http://www.perrspectives.com/features/Bush10Flips.htm
As expected, Bush instead endorsed the defanged inquiries established
by the GOP leadership in the House and Senate.
In a nutshell, Bush's recovery from Katrina is just what we've come to
expect: almost unlimited -- and unfunded - federal largesse, with no
accountability for past mistakes or independent oversight for the
future.
Laissez les bons temps rouler, indeed.
________________________________________________________
The drooling by Bush's cronies could flood New Orleans again.
Harry
.
|
