I can barely believe my eyes and ears when hearing we are now being asked as a country to fork over gargantuan billions of dollars to Louisiana FOR THEIR CONTROL AND DISPENSATION, without so much as a receipt and/or documentation as to how it's spent.
The state should be taken into some sort of Marshall Law embrace, rebuilt with some sense to the georgraphy and not upon sentimentality, and every individual harmed by the damage (there and elsewhere) helped financially. BUT, to leave Louisiana -- New Orleans, specifically -- to profit yet again with no supervision (or even with supervision, because I am thinking the whole area needs to be relieved of duties, at least, for a while), is the most wasteful thing I have ever heard. It equals "guest worker programs" in nuttiness and waste as to Americans' taxes.
In his prime-time speech, President Bush made it clear there would be strict oversight of the rebuilding. Each day we're going to see more about why this is needed.
Katrina turned over a big rock.
As pointed out in private reply, I typo'd:
Marshall Law is a typo; I understand what Martial Law is and how it's spelled, just typo'd the noun earlier. All the word police can now relax. Please.
You can not believe the gall of the Louisiana politician to steal if you haven't lived there. No one is stupid enough to hand the money directly to them. My concern is there are not enough people sent in to act as checks on every dollar spent. It's not good enough to write the check you have to physically go out and follow the money to its end result.
Just to prove your point, the Orleans Parish School Board was effectively replaced by a private turnaround management company in July due to malfeasance and corruption.
And it was the School Board - not Ray Nagin - that was dithering about releasing its school buses for hurricane evacs, as is specifically discussed in its June 9 2005 minutes.
The whole city is a circus of incompetence.
I think the Presdient was proposing exactly they opposite, and the Louisiana delegation was fussing about that. The LA folks want the money with no strings and the President isn't playing.
The 250 billion that lambroad wanted works out to about $1,000.00 apiece from my son and I. We discussed it and decided NO to NO.
Should be declared Federal land.
That will take out the local officials.
Let's see how the state survives without the Federal payouts for the paper levees.
Call your reps and tell them "NO SPENDING ON REBUILDING!" Clean-up? Yes. Rebuilding? NO!
A choke hold would be more appropriate.
The old corrupt machine will be a child's toy in comparison to the upcoming federally-funded fiasco.
As usual, the tax payers will have to fix the same levees many times.
I couldn't believe Vitter kept a straight face on H&C tonight... Landrieu "declined" an interview on the same show.