REUTERS/Mannie Garcia
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Posted on 09/16/2005 10:26:54 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON — President Bush said today the Gulf Coast must be rebuilt with an eye toward wiping out the persistent poverty and racial injustice plain to all in the suffering of the black and the poor in Hurricane Katrina's wake.
"As we clear away the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away the legacy of inequality," Bush said during a national prayer service with other political leaders and religious figures from the affected region at the National Cathedral."
Also today, White House officials said that taxpayers will pay the bill for the massive reconstruction program for the hurricane ravaged-Gulf Coast and that the huge expense will worsen the nation's budget deficit.
Several dozen evacuees and first responders, all from New Orleans, filled one side wing. The president and his wife, Laura, sat solemnly in a front pew along with Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne.
Before Bush's remarks, Bishop T.D. Jakes, head of 30,000-member Potter's House church in Dallas, delivered a powerful sermon in which he called upon Americans to "dare to discuss the unmentionable issues that confront us" and to not rest until the poor are raised to an acceptable living standard.
"Katrina, perhaps, she has done something to this nation that needed to be done," Jakes said. "We can no longer be a nation that overlooks the poor and the suffering, that continues past the ghetto on our way to the Mardi Gras."
Bush, faced with continuing questions about whether help would have been sent more quickly to the storm zone if most victims had not been poor and black, echoed those themes in brief remarks that were rich with religious references.
"Some of the greatest hardships fell upon citizens already facing lives of struggle, the elderly, the vulnerable and the poor," he said. "As we rebuild homes and businesses, we will renew our promise as a land of equality and decency and one day Americans will look back at the response to Hurricane Katrina and say that our country grew not only in prosperity but in character and justice."
As on Thursday, when Bush called for "bold action" to overcome poverty and discrimination, he offered no specific actions that should be taken.
At the White House, Al Hubbard, director of Bush's National Economic Council, said the disaster costs — estimated at $200 billion and beyond — are "coming from the American taxpayer." He acknowledged the costs would swell the deficit — projected at $333 billion for the current year before Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast.
Some fiscal conservatives are expressing alarm at the prospect of such massive federal outlays without cutting other spending.
"It is inexcusable for the White House and Congress to not even make the effort to find at least some offsets to this new spending," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
Claude Allen, the president's domestic policy adviser, said the administration had not identified any budget cuts to offset the disaster expense. Congress already has approved $62 billion for the disaster, but that is expected to run out next month.
In his address to the nation Thursday night from the heart of New Orleans' French Quarter, Bush said the recovery effort would be one of the largest reconstruction projects the world has ever seen and promised that the federal government would pay for most of it.
"There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again," he said.
The government failed to respond adequately, with agencies that lacked coordination and were overwhelmed by Katrina and the subsequent flooding of New Orleans, Bush said. Dogged by criticism that Washington's response to the hurricane was slow and inadequate, Bush said the nation has "every right to expect" more effective federal action in a time of emergency.
The hurricane killed hundreds of people across five states, forced major evacuations and caused untold property damage.
Disaster planning must be a "national security priority," he said, while ordering the Homeland Security Department to undertake an immediate review of emergency plans in every major American city and asking all Cabinet secretaries to join in a comprehensive review of the faulty response. He said the disaster revealed the need for greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces.
Bush faced the nation at a vulnerable point in his presidency. Most Americans disapprove of his handling of Katrina, and his job-approval rating has been dragged down to the lowest point of his presidency also because of dissatisfaction with the Iraq war and rising gasoline prices. He has struggled to demonstrate the same take-charge leadership he displayed after the Sept. 11 terror attacks four years ago.
"When the federal government fails to meet such an obligation, I as president am responsible for the problem, and for the solution," Bush said."This government will learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina."
Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish near New Orleans, was happy with Bush's speech. "Mainly he gave hope, and right now in this area people need hope more than anything," he told CBS' "The Early Show."
Bush repeated a hotline number, 1-877-568-3317, for people to call to help reunite family members separated during the hurricane. Moments later, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., criticized Bush, saying "Leadership isn't a speech or a toll-free number."
Bush proposed establishment of worker recovery accounts providing up to $5,000 for job training, education and child care during victims' search for employment. He also proposed creation of a Gulf Opportunity Zone in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama offering tax breaks to encourage businesses to stay in the devastated region and new businesses to open. The White House said today that each of those initiatives would cost about $2 billion.
Bush said the goal was to get evacuees out of shelters by mid-October and into apartments and other homes, with assistance from the government. He said he would work with Congress to ensure that states were reimbursed for the cost of caring for evacuees.
What they got was praise for Bush and belief in his sincerity. People interviewed placed fault at the doorstep of local government and even said they should have left.
This must be giving LIBERALS vapors.
His speech is giving ME vapors. I can't stomach Mr Bush tossing bones to the race-baiters. And the SPENDING???!!!
REUTERS/Mannie Garcia
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Bush has taken the poverty bull by the horns. He's going to shape the recovery (note he said local government isn't going to have a free hand in this). Instead of poverty business as usual, Bush is setting up the framework for capitalism and excellence.
The problem you are having is looking at the picture too narrowly, in terms of costs in $$. If the plan works, the liberal's hold on minorities will be a thing of the past. It is very, very bold. It will be expensive, but it was going to be anyway, so why not to one step further and spend the money in a way that will eliminate dependence on government? Ownership, job training, school vouchers, access to a better life, all courtesy of a man with an (R) behind his name.
I am starting to wonder why I voted for him. If I wanted a tax and spend liberal who would run the deficit up I would have voted for Kerry. Lets just keep building these houses in flood plains and expect the government to rebuild them. And frankly, I lived near NO for a while, it isn't that great of a city.
I hope you are right. But when did throwing money at a problem ever solve it?
Education! Education!
His speech is giving more Freepers the trots than I would've thought.
As best as I can see, the President outlined a reconstruction program that focuses on "public infrastructure", "ownership", and empowerment. And based on what I heard, it sounds like the programs he proposed are workable. It isn't as if we can choose not to rebuild the city.
I like what you are saying, but, as your screenname implies, I'll believe it when/if I see it. Still, seems like a lesser-of-two-evils kind of choice.
Another thing to consider: There is more at stake than the future of the people who live on the coast. The major U.S. port at the mouth of the Mississippi River affects all of our bottom lines.
I can't think of anything Bush has done or said in the past 24 hours that Clinton would not have. At this point what's the difference?
Correct.
(FReepers need to take a breath and think. LIBERALS underestimate Bush. FReepers shouldn't.)
""There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans"
Uh, yes there is and unfortunately Oliver Stone will probably direct.
I have to say this that it is federally mandate that New Orleans be rebuilt at the direction of the Feds. If we get the pork out of DC and use it to rebuild NOLA there will be enough $$$ for NOLA.
Anytime, ANY politician uses those types of words, you had better check your hip-pocket for your wallet because government has it's fingers on your money. This statement is met with: We are going to take the money from people who made something of their lives, got off their butts and worked for a living, learned a sell-able skill, got an education, got training in a skill that can actually be used in real life, and did not sit on their butts burping out illegitimate children every other year, sit on their butts collecting welfare or sit and demand that government be their daddy.
Simply put, your inability to get yourself prepared for life is not my fault. I don't owe you a freaking dime. Earn it yourself. Government keep your stinking hands out of my pockets to take care of these deadbeats.
I have been to NO three times. Each trip I had to take was to ship my car to Germany where I was being assigned while in the Army. Each trip to NO was shorter. I had to drive through neighborhoods to get to the dock that I wanted a tank around me instead of a car. The only white face in the entire area. I ran a few red-lights so that I did not have to stop at corners where many were standing around. I was more afraid there than I was in Vietnam. In Nam I could defend myself. There I was unarmed, a dead man. I am glad my car did not break down. The neighborhoods were slums, dirty, wrecked, stripped cars along the streets. Trash, junk, grime all over the place. People just sitting on the stairs of the building. Hundreds of children running around in the streets, and this was during school hours.
At some point these people, all people have to take responsibility for their own lives. When I left home at 18 to join the Army, my father told me the morning I was leaving: You are a man now. The decisions you make are yours. You live with the consequences. Do good and you will be okay. Do bad, and you will pay for it. Do what they tell you to do. Keep your mouth shut. Work hard. Be a man. Remember, I am proud of you.
It takes a concerned parent. Not some drunk or druggie for a parent, to make a kid successful. The damned government CANNOT BE A PARENT! No matter how much money they throw at it.
I just hope out of this, they realize that the black people were the reason we have had the civil rights movement and that they have been left behind again because of the emergence of massive immigration of all other backgrounds who now shove the blacks to the back of the line once more.
Get back to me when President Bush has sex with an intern, then wags his finger in your face denying it.
We can't spend money helping tsumani victims half-way around the globe, then turn around and abandon our own people. A lot of these folks are going to get government money one way or another, so it may as well be spent making productive citizens out of those who so far haven't been. It's good for them, and it's good for the country.
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