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 ...
The Democratic Mantra...of "zero" personal accountability.
"How did she get elected?"
The dems lied, cheated and committed fraud .. how else!
How cute .. she broke down in tears ..?? Oh good grief - this is just incompentance to the max.
Capping the price of gas? I thought that guy claims to be a conservative.
This master of the obvious would, obviously, have every contingency for every possible occurrence well in hand if he were in charge, rather than in his official capacity in the Judgment Seat over what others do wrong.
I saw Olberman's little rant about the Guard and the politicians' "vacations". He has always been a jerk. Keep your day job Keith...... sports.
Hurricanes are forces of nature-period! Who ever the idiots are who seek to fix blame for the death and destruction along the gulf coast on politicians at any level of government or any political party whatsoever, are exposing their own adolescent perspective.
When man trys to corral nature, nature eventually exposes man for the puny pipsqueak he is.
Fournier and his ilk are in the way of those working to assist the victems and begin the recovery and rebuilding. Such bastards deserve no air time, ink or paper upon which to spew their poison of negativism.
So .. the levees were not on her list ..??
I know .. it's so frustrating!
So, it is up to the government to prepare for every possible disaster that may occur anywhere in the country, say, a comet hitting Chicago or a major volcanic eruption at Yellowstone which covers the entire western half of the country with ash and debris.
And, if every survivor is not rescued within 24 hours and provided w/ a hot meal, a new wardrobe, a new house, and a new job, it's the fault of the government!!
There is no way every disaster, natural or man made, can be prepared for. If we all knew what was going to happen next week, we could prepare for it, but we can't. Bad things happen and there is nothing anyone, including the most powerful people in our government, can do about it.
I don't usually listen to Savage, he's off the deep end, tonite I happened to turn the radio on for no particular reason and there he was going on and on, I tuned him out and missed his last point about not givng aid to someone, don't recall who at this point....as for him being a conservative, sometimes I wonder, he seems to swing back and forth.
He's a bit of a wacko. Let's see...the only people in favor of capping gas prices are the Hawaii legislature, Savage and Jimmy Carter. Hmmm...
Wait a minute. Lake Ponchartrain is MAN MADE. Created in the 1920s, this lake is due to forcing the route of the Mississippi River.
Gee, whoever thought that up should........well, sigh.
http://www.stphilipneri.org/teacher/pontchartrain/section.php?id=79
Hey hey, watch that Jimmah Catah stuff, according to a guy I used to work with, Jimmah was the GREATEST PRESIDENT ever, yes indeedy and I thought this former co-worker had a brain!
Most people I know have stopped watching the coverage. They have decided to maintain their sanity...and haven't we heard enough of the "blame Bush" mantra from the left? I know I have. I get my news here.
NO was above sea level when it was founded? Haven't heard that. What happened?
You are the first so far that has touched on a subject I was about to comment about.
This afternoon, there was an engineer who spoke about the levees. He said the money that was to pay for levee repairs was not to repair them where they breached but where they didn't breach.
He explained it had something to do about the levee on the lake side and the one on the river side. He said the only way to perhaps have prevented this was to increase the height of all the levees.
If the state had received all the funding that they had asked for it still would not have had any effect on this tragedy.
Did the Corps of Engineers propose the creation of Lake Ponchartrain?
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