Posted on 09/01/2005 5:13:07 PM PDT by badpacifist
Newsview: Politicians Failed Storm Victims by RON FOURNIER
WASHINGTON (AP) - At every turn, political leaders failed Katrina's victims. They didn't strengthen the levees. They ceded the streets to marauding looters. They left dead bodies to rot or bloat. Thousands suffered or died for lack of water, food and hope. ..
There's plenty of blame to go around - the White House, Congress, federal agencies, local governments, police and even residents of the Gulf Coast who refused orders to evacuate. But all the finger-pointing misses the point: Politicians and the people they lead too often ignore danger signs until a crisis hits.
It wasn't a secret that levees built to keep New Orleans from flooding could not withstand a major hurricane, but government leaders never found the money to fully shore up the network of earthen, steel and concrete barriers.
Both the Bush and Clinton administrations proposed budgets that low-balled the needs. Local politicians grabbed whatever money they could and declared victory. And the public didn't exactly demand tax increases to pay for flood-control and hurricane-protection projects.
Just last year, the Army Corps of Engineers sought $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans. The White House slashed the request to about $40 million. Congress finally approved $42.2 million, less than half of the agency's request.
Yet the lawmakers and Bush agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-laden highway bill that included more than 6,000 pet projects for lawmakers. Congress spent money on dust control for Arkansas roads, a warehouse on the Erie Canal and a $231 million bridge to a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.
Alaska is represented by Republican Rep. Don Young, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, and Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, a member of the all-important Senate Appropriations Committee. Louisiana's delegation holds far less sway.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
Nobody here cares what Ron Fournier has to say.
And this most certainly is NOT breaking news.
Gee, ya think the MSM would like a plate of the crowpie too..
FoR not more aggressively reporting the behind the scenes games that were played with people's lives , if at all.
If folks only knew what and how their taxdollars were bartered, allocated and spent on and for..
But that's another story the MSM will not want to do,, it involves all parties, including them, imo.
How come nobody ever mentions the word GOVERNOR - if this was happening in TEXAS, you can bet the first word on anybody's lips would be "the GOVERNOR is to blame".
But the first word is the WH - the Congress - but the Governor gets left off the responsibility list. Sad!
Especially state and local. It was their primary responsibility.
Breaking news? Give me a break.
Fournier and another one of his "head up his rear" 20/20 vision pieces.
Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco Louisiana First Agenda 2005 Legislative Priorities
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1474974/posts
MSM fails America by its blatant political bias.
Believe the GOP always gets the blame. No one talks about what Clinton could have done in his presidency. Oh no. And what about the Governor and Mayor. And the delegation from New Orleans. Give me a break.
You are very correct on that. It is not breaking news that was my mistake.
I was just watching MSNBC and the situation is horrible. Babies dying in the New Orleans convention center (where people were told to evacuate) because of dehydration as there isn't any clean water to drink. Rotting corpses being eaten by rodents.
The GOVERNMENT is to blame. They should have had everybody evacuated from New Orleans already. I don't care if they had to use every schoolbus in Texas and Louisiana.
Now, the primary is the incompetent Democrat-controlled state government of Louisiana, and secondarily the Republican-controlled federal government. But you can bet your last dollar that the Republicans will get ALL the blame in the media.
We shouldn't forget that the inept response to Hurricane Andrew was a significant factor behind George H Bush's defeat in 1992.
O'Reilly who said on Tuesday that we dodged a bullet that more people died in florida. Now he is ripping the government for not doing enough. What gives with the press. They can change on a dime and judge from their comfortable chairs. But National Government cannot. Obberman is even more of a jurk. All the National Guard is in Iraq. It is the Presidents fault.
**It wasn't a secret that levees built to keep New Orleans from flooding could not withstand a major hurricane**
But they did, the major breech is not on the levee's that took the worst of the storm on the lakeside but on an internal canal. If the levees is as bad as Liberals are charging then the entire levee system would of failed instead of just one or two breaks.
Well guvna! I'm thinking because she is weak, overwhelmed, over her head, not a leader, is clueless and if someone dares to criticize her she will break down in tears like she did last nite and probably run away. How did this woman get elected?
An unbiased view WOULD still blame government, but 100 years of government that continued to allow building in land mass that is under sea level and bordered by an enormous lake on the north and the largest river in North America on the south.
But unlike Ron Fournier, I haven't gotten the Bush Culpability Exaggerator chip implant yet, so I'm still looking at things the old fashioned way.
What a load of horse manure.
The anarchy, looting, hopelessness, and helplessness we are seeing in the aftermath of Katrina is the result of too many people always believing that government is watching out for them and will always be there to help them.
It's bad form to criticize a democrat woman.
.... Savage is on a roll. He was talking about using the bases that are to be closed as refugee centers, capping the price of gas, no aid to immigrants and there was another point I just can't remember right now......
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