Posted on 08/31/2017 9:41:46 AM PDT by EyesOfTX
In the wake of Katrina in 2005, the Louisiana congressional delegation, led by then-Senators Mary Landrieu andDavid Vitter, swung for the fences, bringing forward an initial proposal for a massive $250 billion appropriation that included funding for things like $35 million in marketing funds for the state’s seafood industry, $8 million for alligator farms. This breathtaking money grab came after the George W. Bush Administration had worked with congressional leaders to push through $62 billion in Katrina-related recovery funding.
In the end, congress rejected that proposal, but did end up appropriating more than $120 billion in Katrina-related recovery funding in the years following the storm.
Twelve years later, now comes Hurricane Harvey, and a trail of devastation that is many times the size of the impact of Katrina. Partisan politics in the nation’s capital were already polarized in 2005, but the situation today makes the politics of a dozen years ago seem like patty-cake by comparison.
The President has often spoken of his desire for a bill in excess of $1 trillion over ten years to help rebuild the country’s decaying system of roads, bridges and other key infrastructure. The scale of the devastation in Texas and Louisiana from Harvey could serve as an anchoring point to the building out of a comprehensive national proposal.
Never have so many major “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects presented themselves in any region of this country at any single time as we are about to see manifesting themselves in Texas and Houston in the weeks to come. It’s still a little too soon for the politicians to begin talking about all of this now, but as the flood-waters recede and the true scope and scale of the devastation becomes visible to television cameras, the political gamesmanship will and should begin in earnest.
(Excerpt) Read more at dbdailyupdate.com ...
No, you can post your blog junk right here in full.
Free Republic is not your hit farm.
I don’t know what they spent the money on...it wasn’t the people who lost their homes or rentals or public housing...
many of those people were flown to other states...TN got quite a few of them...we got hundreds in our area...many of them on welfare etc already...
These so called disasters are sure-fire vehicle for MASSIVE gubmint increase.
If you live in a hurricane-prone/flood-prone/earthquake-prone/tornado-prone zones, you have to take personal responsibility to your own lives and property. Sure, the gubmint will bring their “relief” and “rescue”, but those should be minimal and focused ONLY on saving lives, rather than “help rebuild”.
Gubmint does NOT “help” rebuild anything. It is pure transfer of wealth.
Both sides can play the “don’t let a crisis go to waste” game.
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