For all of us who criticize from the sidelines, sometimes it's hard to
appreciate the sort of tireless, behind-the-scenes efforts that the White House
puts into into screwing the middle class and abandoning those displaced and
uprooted by Katrina.
From the LATimes ...
"Two days after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, the Department of
Housing and Urban Development announced plans to issue emergency vouchers aimed
at helping poor storm victims find new housing quickly by covering as much as
$10,000 of their rent.
"But the department suddenly backed away from the idea after White House aides
met with senior HUD officials. Although emergency vouchers had been
successfully used after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the administration
focused instead on a plan for government-built trailer parks, an approach that
even many Republicans say would concentrate poverty in the very fashion the
government has long sought to avoid.
"A similar struggle has occurred over how to provide healthcare to storm
victims. White House officials are quietly working to derail a proposal by
leading Republican and Democratic senators to temporarily expand Medicaid.
Instead, the administration is pushing a narrower plan that would not commit
the government to covering certain groups of evacuees."
There's plenty more in the piece.
Just for the sake of discussion, and I'd be particularly eager to hear from
TPM's right-leaning readers on this one, isn't the idea of giving rent vouchers
to refugees rather than stacking them up in mobile housing projects something
that folks on both sides of the aisle should be able to agree on?
On the hand, who gets to build and fit out the gazillion standard issue mobile
homes? Halliburton residential? I guess that's the answer.
-- Josh Marshall
<http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_09_18.php#006624>
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