Posted on 09/19/2005 7:50:12 AM PDT by churchillbuff
Yesterday on his radio show, conservative talk host David Gold said the proposed massive federal spending for Katrina "relief" is a TIME OF TESTING FOR CONSERVATIVES. Do they really believe in small and efficient government - - or will they accept socialist-scale big spending as long as it's proposed by a Republican president?
Gold said he was surprised and disheartened to find many posters on FreeRepublic.com making excuses for the huge proposed spending. Bet they'd be sounding a different tune if Clinton were president and he had proposed it!
Those companies grew from nothing. That means NO financial support from the federal government.
I wouldn't mind the spending if it was to permanently relocate all these people and businesses to a sane location. But spending billions of dollars to set ourselves up for a repeat of the same disaster is just dumb. Not to mention that it is now clear to al Qaeda that the only thing needed to decimate a certain large US city is to fly an itsy bitsy little plane into a levee. If I was an al Qaeda plotter, I'd be VERY eager to see New Orleans rebuilt, as quickly and expensively as possible.
A Bushian Laboratory
By DAVID BROOKS September 18, 2005
On Oct. 5, 1999, George Bush went to the Manhattan Institute and delivered the most important domestic policy speech of his life. In what was mostly a talk about education, he made it quite clear he was no liberal. But he also broke with mainstream conservatism as it then existed
He distanced himself from the cultural pessimists, the dour conservatives who were arguing that America was sliding toward decadence. Then he bluntly repudiated the small government conservatism that marked the Gingrich/Armey era.
It's not enough to cut the size of government, Bush said, or simply get government out of the way. Instead, Republicans have to come up with a positive vision of "focused and effective and energetic government."
With that, Bush set off on a journey to define what he called "compassionate conservatism" and what others call big government conservatism.
It's been a bumpy ride. Over the past five years, Bush has overseen the fastest increase in domestic spending of any president in recent history. Moreover, he's never resolved the contradiction between his compassionate spending policy and his small-government tax policy.
But gradually and fitfully, Bush has muddled his way toward something important, a positive use of government that is neither big government liberalism nor antigovernment libertarianism. He's been willing to spend heaps of federal dollars, but he wants that spending to go to programs that enhance individual initiative and personal responsibility.
On Thursday, President Bush went to New Orleans and gave the second most important domestic policy speech of his life. Politically it was a masterpiece, proof that if the president levels with the American people and admits mistakes, it pays off.
But in policy terms, the speech pushed the journey toward Bushian conservatism into high gear. The Gulf Coast will be a laboratory for the Bushian vision of energetic but not domineering government.
Bush proposed an Urban Homestead Act, which will draw enterprising people to the area, giving them an opportunity to own property so long as they're willing to work with private agencies to put up their own homes. He proposed individual job training accounts, so much of the rebuilding work can be done by former residents. Children who have left flooded areas will find themselves in a proto-school-choice program, with education dollars strapped to each individual child.
This is an effort to transform the gulf region, which had become a disaster zone of urban liberalism. All around the South, cities are booming, but New Orleans never did. All around the country, crime was dropping, but in New Orleans it was rising. Immigrants were flowing across the land in search of opportunity, but as Joel Kotkin has observed, few were interested in New Orleans.
Now the Bush administration is trying to change all that. That means trying to get around the corruption that made the city such a rotten place to do business. The White House is trying to do this by devising programs in which checks and benefits flow directly to recipients, not through local agencies.
That means challenging the reigning assumptions. Right now the White House is fighting with Louisiana over where to house evacuees. The state wants to put temporary trailer parks on faraway military bases, where there are no jobs and where they will live in "abject dependency," as one senior White House official puts it. The Bush folks want to put temporary housing within a mile of the original neighborhoods so people can become self-sufficient as quickly as possible.
On Thursday, the president was honest about the cost of all this, but he only began to lay out a plan. The Bushies are still trying to figure out how to help people from broken families and those with mental disabilities. They're trying to figure out where to cut government to offset the costs. There are arguments about what New Orleans should try to be, a smaller controlled-growth Portland or a booming and spreading Houston.
Like Franklin Roosevelt in the New Deal era, Bush doesn't have a complete vision of what he wants to achieve. But he does have an instinctive framework.
His administration is going to fight a two-front war, against big government liberals and small government conservatives, but if he can devote himself to executing his policies, the Gulf Coast will be his T.V.A., the program that serves as a model for what can be done nationwide.
Resurrecting an opponents agenda is no way to bury them. Rush has become a Bush cheerleader. I don't think he wants to be, but I think that he knows that his Bush-bot audience demand it.
David Who?? Never heard of him.
yo buddy...it's MANDATED BY LAW..the federal response that is.
Your subtle "Bush sucks" gets tiresome.
The can provide SOME EMERGENCY aid, but that should be it. The federal government is not an ATM or a social engineering machine.
There is a proper role for the federal government and handing out money for people to build is a mistake. It was a mistake when FDR did it and it is a mistake now.
The Stafford Act - Mandates what the Federal Government must do in a disaster
http://www.fema.gov/library/stafact.shtm
Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, as amended by Public Law 106-390, October 30, 2000
UNITED STATES CODE
Title 42. THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
CHAPTER 68. DISASTER RELIEF
[As amended by Pub. L. 103-181, Pub. L. 103-337, and Pub. L. 106-390]
(Pub. L. 106-390, October 30, 2000, 114 Stat. 1552 - 1575)
[snip]
Sir I have never cleaned out storm drains.
I have however cleaned out many toilets then mopped the floors afterward so I definitely appreciate your experience! :o)
The housing market in Southwest Missouri is weird. Everything is undervalued but the flip side of that is that payroll is way below the national average as well. It is pretty much a wash until you have to go buy a new car or a diamond ring for your fiance.
I am sure your home is beautiful and something to be very proud of.
I looked at Gold's website. He doesn't say how many listeners or stations he is on (in fairness most of them don't though). He did have a pretty respectable number of hits to the site though so that says well for him.
I'm slacking off work too much today so I better get back to it. Have a great day!
Respectfully,
A.Webb
Which shows that a fiscal liberal republican president paired with a republican congress is not a good thing. The congress just gives Bush a rubber stamp for any spending increases he asks for.
At least when Clinton was in office, the republicans in congress acted like conservatives.
My guess is that he would have taken every bill with KKK Byrd and/or Teddy "The Red Nosed Senator" Kennedy name on it and stripped them bare. Heck, take the pork out of those guy's bills and you'd probably save $500 Billion!
Through insurance claims to start. Any commercial building would have had proper insurance. Any property, residential or commercial, with a mortgage would have been required by the lender to carry proper insurance. The insurance companies have over $400 billion in reserve.
Secondly, if the area is truly economically vital and viable, there will be no problem obtaining bonds or to secure private financing.
The feds can help rebuild THEIR properties and others that they ordinary help with such as roads.
Also, I am tired of this being called the "Gulf Coast" - it is only a portion of it. The Gulf Coast runs all the way from southern florida to south eastern Texas. As far as population is concerned, the effected area is very sparsely populated in comparison to the rest of the Gulf Coast.
Having a port on the Mississippi River is indeed important, but again, if it really is THAT important then there will no problem floating bonds or securing financing.
Brilliant. I missed it last night.
Thanks.
That can not be said often and loudly enough.
This has been brought up a few times over the past few days. I feel that it is irrelevant and moot as Reagan was a man and not a god. He is without a doubt the greatest president of the 20th century, but he had a lot of shortcomings to.
Really, are you completely sure there was absolutely no financial incentives for refineries or steel or gypsum or any of a large number of companies?
Not only that, but even if there was no federal assistance, there was private money that wasn't being negatively impacted daily. Kind of hard to start from a negative nothing position.
Tell ya what, let's just close every port in the Gulf of Mexico and along the east coast (up to the point where they could be affected by a hurricane). Stupid people for living along the coast anyway. We don't contribute anything to the national economy. We aren't important financially. Y'all can do without us.
I was just in your neck of the woods a month or so ago. It seems a very nice area. If I didn't have my kids stuck in this area (the ex won't move) and the job market was better, I'd seriously consider relocating.
There are plenty of low paying tourist industry jobs in Branson. OTOH, it might be worth it to ditch the stress...
Speaking of which, I'd better put my nose back to the grindstone, too.
Best,
nully
no, but let's hedge our bets. let's make these other cuts in pork projects to help pay for this. let's not commit to some huge dollar figure from the outset for a total rebuilding, when we don't even know what makes sense to rebuild - and what doesn't. let's get as many of these evacuees who want to settle in other cities - in place there, with some one time cash stipend to help them.
let's not just jump in with some new grand plan - because if it blows up in our faces (odds are, it will) and just turns into another handout program - its going to hurt us politically.
Rush and alot of people here who are blindly embracing this thing, don't seem to want to even consider this.
Guess what? I live in a tornado prone area - North Georgia. Guess what else? I have insurance against tornado damage - enough to rebuild the house, restock the appliances and basics. Can't help the really important stuff (guns, books, etc.), but they are in the basement anyway... It would be a disaster, but I wouldn't have to rob the taxpayers to recover.
My mom lived in Charleston, SC. She carried insurance against hurricanes and their effects (surges, etc). Came in useful after Hugo (and BTW, the sensible folks of South Carolina did not build the Holy City below sea level). She didn't have to rob the taxpayers either.
'Bout the only thing you can tag me for is earthquake insurance if the Meridian fault ever lets go. And I'm thinkin' about checkin' with the bookies (i.e. insurance companies) about that!
Sorry. I stick with my original statement - they are NOT entitled to Federal (taxpayer!) dollars to rebuild. They are entitled to their insurance and that's it.
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