[JeffAtlanta]

The more I think about it, the more I believe this is a great night for the President and his party and a very bad night for the Democrats.

How? The democrats just got a $200 billion social program. It's a bad night for fiscal conservatives and those that believe in a small federal government.

[sinkspur]

It's a bad night for fiscal conservatives and those that believe in a small federal government.

Yep. Scrooges are miserable.

But,then, Scrooges are miserable most of the time, I've found.

[You Dirty Rats]

It's a bad night for fiscal conservatives and those that believe in a small federal government.

It's a worse night for families on cots in the Astrodome with everything they own in two Hefty Trash Bags.

[oceanview]

tucker carlson saying "this is a guilt speech, and the only way a guilty government knows how to make it right - is to throw money".

[oceanview]

its going higher then 200 billion, you know that. the environmental impact studies will tie it up for years, the lawyers will litigate it to death.

[msnimje]

How? The democrats just got a $200 billion social program. It's a bad night for fiscal conservatives and those that believe in a small federal government.

Jeff, this is what the Federal government is supposed to do. When something happens that is bigger than any single state can handle, the rest join together and help them out.

Herein lies our strength.

How it is bad for the Democrats is these people who have been generationally kept down by the Social Welfare programs will see the light of self-relliance and feel the pride of being self-sustaining and for the first time actually believe the American Dream can belong to them if they work hard enough.

They will have to disabuse themselves of the notion that it is the REPUBLICANS who want to keep the poor and stupid and realize this has been the bread and butter of the Democrats.

[wxdawg]

First, to all those that think what GWB proposed tonight is outside the bounds of the federal government, I would point you to the preamble of the Constitution...

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Obviously, it is the obligation of all the states united to "promote the general welfare." It is not in the general welfare of the US to leave an area the size of the UK devastated and leave barren the fifth-largest port in the world. Do you realize that according to the Red Cross, 75% of all homes in the six gulf coast counties of MS are uninhabitable? This is a disaster of unprecedented scale. It will take the resources of ALL Americans to rebuild and restore. I am a Mississippian, yes...but if this had happened as a tsunami in California...I would be just as adamant on using the national resources to rebuild...because first I am an AMERICAN.

On the issue of New Orleans' location...NO is, as was once said, "an inevitable city in an impossible place." But that is the point. The port of NO, which is the economic pivot of this country, cannot be located anywhere else. Further up the MS River, it becomes much too narrow and shallow for ocean going vessels to navigate. The fifth largest port in the world must have a city to support its workers and their families. Presto! You have New Orleans. Beyond this fact, we have many other cities, notably in CA, that will one day be destroyed...or have already been destroyed and rebuilt in the past. As GWB said, "Americans have never left our destiny to the whims of nature -- and we will not start now."

On the issue of flood insurance, many did not have flood insurance in MS because their home was above the Camille storm surge line. As a meteorologist, and according to NOAA SLOSH models, they should have been safe even in another cat 5 hurricane. Obviously, that assumption was wrong. But I would have been hard pressed to argue with them three weeks ago. And, of course, is it really a flood when the damage was caused by a wind-driven storm surge? But, as a conservative, am I supposed to tell them, "Better luck next time"? No...because that is certainly not in the "general welfare" of America either...or in its heart and soul.

And, before I am zotted as a liberal...or as a bushbot...I am a dyed-in-the-wool conservative...who has voted Republican since my first vote for Kirk Fordice in 1995. And, yes, I disagree with GWB on several issues...namely immigration. But as Dole once said, "I belong to a party, not a cult"...and we can certainly constructively disagree on many issues of the day. But on the issue of rebuilding a huge area of America that has been laid waste...on the issue of comforting people who were displaced in the largest mass exodus of Americans since the Civil War...and on the issue of revitalization of one of our main economic engines...NONE of that should be up for debate by any American. Now...lets get to work!