Posted on 11/14/2021 5:44:58 PM PST by Libloather
resident Biden is tapping former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu to coordinate the implementation of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, the White House announced Sunday.
“In this role, Landrieu will oversee the most significant and comprehensive investments in American infrastructure in generations - work that independent experts verify will create millions of high-paying, union jobs while boosting our economic competitiveness in the world, strengthening our supply chains, and acting against inflation for the long term,” the White House said in a news release.
In Sunday’s announcement, the White House touted Landrieu’s work shepherding New Orleans through its recovery following Hurricane Katrina. Landrieu, a Democrat, served as mayor of New Orleans from 2010 to 2018. He later chaired the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a bipartisan coalition of mayors across the country.
“I am thankful to the President and honored to be tasked with coordinating the largest infrastructure investment in generations,” Landrieu said in a statement shared by the White House.
“Our work will require strong partnerships across the government and with state and local leaders, business and labor to create good-paying jobs and rebuild America for the middle class. We will also ensure these major investments achieve the President’s goals of combating climate change and advancing equity,” he added.
Landrieu will assume the formal title of White House senior adviser and infrastructure coordinator. The high-stakes role will involve coordinating the implementation of over a trillion dollars in funding across multiple federal agencies, most of it invested over the next five years.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Misogyny, thy name is The Biden White House!
A country that can’t even fill retail or food service jobs will suddenly find enough skilled workmen to complete 1.5 trillion dollars worth of building projects ? - that sounds doable - not.
We are about to flush trillions of dollars right down the crapper. 13 republicans voted for it too. Back door reparations
I think the Edwards clan is up there, too.
Has Joe Biden ever accounted for all the money Obama tasked him with “spearheading”?
I despise the Landrieus and always have. Infrastructure here is a disaster. That said, you have no friggin clue how levee boards work around here. They are independent bodies, and the mayor of NOLA doesn’t control their revenues. Moreover, the flood control structures that failed in Katrina were federal, not local. You just made that up about misdirecting levee monies, didn’t you? You don’t help the conservative cause by making ignorant and indefensible accusations.
Excellent! Landrieu’s expertise is in redirecting government funds to friends, family and others politically connected. Why else would anyone get envolved in politics?
Putting fox in charge of the henhouse.
No wonder people argued that the money are going to be wasted.
Now it is going to be wasted for sure!
Wow the corruption is going to be epic
In the wake of Katrina, maladministration of the levee boards was identified as one of the major contributors to the disaster. Now, how exactly does this work?
No, the mayor of the City of New Orleans or the Governor of Louisiana are not personally embezzling money. They appoint the people who appoint the people who make decisions on staffing levels, patronage employees, and award of contracts. They also appoint the people who are supposed to be the watchdogs. If they appoint people who tolerate and participate in cronyism, padded contracts and excessive patronage hiring, considerable sums of money disappear without anyone’s fingerprints being on the misappropriated funds. But I don’t imagine that the mayor or governor are particularly surprised when political contributions flow in from contractors and when the patronage employees all turn out to be enthusiastic political volunteers.
I’ve never lived in Louisiana, but in years past, I had some dealings with folks down that way and got an earful, particularly from the leaders of a major private sector organization in the state that I won’t identify here. (This was years ago, pre-Katrina; perhaps it’s better now.) Personally, I’ve lived for over 40 years in DC and got here during the Marion Barry era; we could have given Louisiana remedial lessons on petty graft. DC agencies back then were woefully incompetent and at the same time wondrously expensive. They didn’t actually accomplish much of value for the city, but they did provide lots of makework jobs, employ large numbers of the mayor’s operatives in highly paid executive positions, and award contracts to politically connected firms that duly contributed the understood tariff back to the DC democrat party. That’s how it works, especially in one party systems where the machine has a finger in everything.
It’s all winks, nods, and turning a blind eye. Did you ever know a culvert inspector? Do you even know what a culvert inspector is? It’s the high school or college age son of a politically connected adult, and the kid gets a summer job in the state highway department that consists of sitting in an air conditioned construction trailer all day playing euchre with other patronage employees. Every day, at the end of a hard eight hour shift, he goes out for an hour or less and inspects the culverts that were supposed to be built, repaired or cleaned that day. Who creates such a job? Who approves the staffing plan and authorizes the hire? Who whispers in whose ear about who gets the plum summer job?
Did you ever know a cement truck certifier, whose job it was to count the half a dozen cement trucks rolling out the gate every day on their way to a state highway department construction site, and signing a piece of paper certifying that they had indeed been dispatched? Tough work. You have to be politically connected to get it.
True stories.
This kind of thing isn’t unique to Louisiana. It happens anywhere that political machines value patronage and don’t fear oversight. In some places in the world, the bulk of government funding as well as assistance from international benefactors disappears in such ways. Lots of little people get jobs. As you go up the chain, the prizes get bigger. At the top, the big bosses tuck the loot away in their secret foreign bank accounts.
No, the mayor and governor didn’t personally highjack levee money, or at least not much of it. They are just the chiefs of a political machine in what has historically been a one-party state, and the machine relies on favoritism, featherbedding, cronyism, and non-competitive bidding.
All I know is that the maladministration of the levee districts over many years was identified as a contributing factor in the Katrina disaster. Too much money that should have been maintaining and improving the levees disappeared instead into the swamp. I’ve seen how it happens in other jurisdictions. I don’t expect that Louisiana is somehow immune.
Who appoints the levee boards? Who awards the contracts? Who is supposed to be policing the system, and do the auditors, inspectors and prosecutors do their job? Perhaps the situation has been cleaned up since Katrina. I certainly hope so. DC is a lot better than it used to be, mainly because we went through de facto bankruptcy, which brought us Anthony Williams and a Control Board. But prior to that, in the Barry era, the DC horror stories were legend. We had the same cancer that Louisiana had: too many democrats in a one party system that lacked accountability, with systemic inefficiency and corruption as a result.
Or do I misunderstand the situation?
Waste Fraud Graft Corruption should eat up about 50% of a trillion in no time.
look what we got out of obammy’s similar-sized stimulus..
and that’s after Joe&cronies get their cuts.
Stacy Abrams is free. (((shudder)))
Didn’t president O rebuild our infrastructure? Or did they steal the money and give it to their friends ? Rhetorical, I know the answer.
A corrupt Mayor, from one of the most corrupt families in New Orleans, from one of the most corrupt cities in America is going to spearhead federal infrastructure projects and spending.
What could possibly go wrong?
Didn’t Nagin go to prison for misusing those funds?
Everyone of the picks this cabal makes is the worst of the worst. The only qualification is to be a loyal party apparatchik.
We aren’t even going to get that, most of this is going to “human infrastructure” aka “slush fund”.
Several decades ago, one of my uncles was sent to New Orleans as a very senior insurance adjuster after a hurricane had battered the city. He mainly handled high $$$ and complicated insurance claims.
Soon after arriving, he found himself in a meeting in a high end restaurant over lunch that purportedly was to discuss some expensive claims. The meeting turned out to be with an organized crime boss.
The boss was trying to cultivate a mutually beneficial arrangement. My uncle understood what was being sought and returned the courtesy of the boss, had a few cups of the marvelous NO coffee then excused himself while thanking the generous host.
I don't think the boss knew what or whom he was dealing with. My uncle was in the 45th Division in WWII and fought in Salerno, Anzio, south of France, broke through the Siegfried Line, crossed the Rhine and a few weeks before the war ended was in the combat team that liberated a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. I have no idea how he survived the war but ended up as a battalion 1st Sergeant.
After the war, he was a polished, no nonsense businessman and a genius with a photographic memory. One thing you didn't do is screw with him. This is the kind of person needed to manage big $$$ contracts and the contractors, not kleptocratic political persons.
Nagin’s crime had nothing to do with levees.
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