Limiting Government's Role: Bush favors one-time fixes over programs to help Katrina victims.

LA Times ^ | 9/23/05 | Peter G. Gosselin and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

[Crackingham]

Two days after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced plans to issue emergency vouchers aimed at helping poor storm victims find new housing quickly by covering as much as $10,000 of their rent.

But the department suddenly backed away from the idea after White House aides met with senior HUD officials. Although emergency vouchers had been successfully used after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the administration focused instead on a plan for government-built trailer parks, an approach that even many Republicans say would concentrate poverty in the very fashion the government has long sought to avoid.

A similar struggle has occurred over how to provide healthcare to storm victims. White House officials are quietly working to derail a proposal by leading Republican and Democratic senators to temporarily expand Medicaid. Instead, the administration is pushing a narrower plan that would not commit the government to covering certain groups of evacuees.

Instead of depending on long-running programs for such services as housing and healthcare, the president has generally tried to create new, one-shot efforts that the administration apparently hopes will more easily disappear after the crisis passes. That has meant relying on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has run virtually all of the recovery effort.

"FEMA can help fill some immediate needs after a disaster, like giving grants to help people repair their roofs or pay for temporary housing," said John P. Sucich, a former senior FEMA official who oversaw the recovery from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. "But it is not the agency to turn to to ensure the kinds of continuing help that families need to begin putting their lives back together.

"That's what the rest of government is for," Sucich said.

[sourcery]

"That's what the rest of government is for," Sucich said.

Contrary to what DhimmiCrats believe, the purpose and justification of government is not to rob Peter to pay Paul. It's to protect the rights of each individual, and to prevent a tyrant from seizing absolute power (whether the threat be internal or external.)

[msnimje]

We here at the LA Times knew FDR.
FDR was a friend of ours.
You, George W. Bush, are no FDR.

[Fresh Wind]

Patience, patience. The Great Society programs will kick in any day now.

[Nathan Zachary]

I think trailer parks would be a vast improvement for NO.Put them were everything was flooded. Keep the wheels on them so they can move them out every time a hurricane comes along. It will reduce future rebuilding costs drastically. All there will be is a transportation bill.

[rhombus]

You, George W. Bush, are no FDR.

Isn't that why many voted for him? The "welfare state" is a bloated barge and it must be diverted and docked slowly. Any politician who would just sink the barge would first, never get elected and second, if elected, would create so much short term economic misery that the philosophy of personal responsibility would go down along with the welfare barge and probably result in electing another FDR who would build an even bigger welfare barge.

[msnimje]

You, George W. Bush, are no FDR. Isn't that why many voted for him?

Yes.
The LA times article is not written for you or me, it is written to knock down some of the recent comparisons of GWB to the Iconic Presidents of the Left, namely LBJ and FDR.

[RTINSC]

If the government is going to provide help, it should be in the form of a loan, not a gift. Individuals are responsible for their lives, not the government.

[rhombus]

The LA times article is not written for you or me, it is written to knock down some of the recent comparisons of GWB to the Iconic Presidents of the Left, namely LBJ and FDR.

You are right on the mark there. There is so much hatred on the left (as well as the right) over Bush that I expect it will be beyond our lifetimes when anyone will be able to judge the results of his presedency with any objectivity.

[ClaireSolt]

I called c-span and blasted a Wapo reporter who came to FL to criticize the new trailers FEMA brought to Punta Gordo last year. I told him that millions of us in FL live in mobile homes and do not appreciate him looking down his nose at us. I also told him to fix Washington DC social problems before he has any credibility commenting on FL. Their coverage of this is offensive to me.

What they are not saying is that they want to use those vouchers to force people who survive huricanes into nasty housing projects, instead of providing temporary housing until people get on their feet.

Even, 18 mo rent free housing is a lot, imho.

[Fresh Wind]

"The idea that — in a community where we could place people in the private housing market to reintegrate them into society — we would put them in [trailer] ghettos with no jobs, no community, no future, strikes me as extraordinarily bad public policy, and violates every conservative principle that I'm aware of," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican.

You are right about trailer parks, and Newtie is, to some extent, wrong. Since many of the people in the devastated areas had employment in the oil industry, those jobs are largely still there, and they need places to live until permanent housing can be rebuilt. It is an issue of national security. No jobs? Imagine how many construction jobs there will be for the next few years. Are those workers supposed to commute?

[sgtbono2002]

So we take the advice of the LA slimes and we put all these people on medicare.

Then what will the LA Slimes say when its time we took them back off?