Your general underlying premise appears to be that people who happen to serve in the government are entitled to take my money from me by force, because they're better judges of how to spend my money than I am. I think the massive corruption of the New Orleans government alone is enough to rebut that argument. In addition, your premise is morally wrong. No one is entitled to take my money from me without my consent. The govt may have the power to do so, but it doesn't have the right.
Specifically, you're telling me that I'll benefit from the rebuilding of New Orleans, a conclusion with which I respectfully disagree. In addition, you tell me that I'm obligated to help relieve the citizens of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and other coastal cities of the hardships they've incurred as a result of their decision to live in a hurricane-prone area. I respectfully disagree with this assumption as well. The people of whom you speak are adults. They're responsible for the decisions they make, just as I'm responsible for mine.
I submit to you that if we subsidize irresponsibility and corruption, which is exactly what we're doing by paying for the repair of a city built below sea level, we will encourage that behavior, and the entire cycle will repeat itself. If we refuse to do so, and the people there have to pay for their own rebuilding effort, they'll likely make different decisions about whether to rebuild, relocate, etc., and will benefit in the long run by making decisions that are wiser than the ones they made originally. Far fewer people will choose to live in a city built below sea level and right in the path of catastrophic hurricanes. When people know they'll reap the consequences of their decisions, they'll almost always make much smarter ones.
This may seem harsh to you, but in fact it's a much kinder philosophy than the one on which your argument is based. Forcing people to subsidize irresponsibility and corruption is not kind. Nor is treating adults like children, robbing them of their dignity and adult decision-making capability by cocooning them in a cradle made of other people's money.
I'm a big advocate of voluntarily giving money to any cause that an individual deems worthy. My objection is to being forced to pay for (in this case) a rebuilding project that I think is a bad idea on both moral and practical grounds.
What do you think of this?
I'll give you this, you're arguing with me on an intellectual ground, and that I can respect
But I would add that there have been many federal projects that I think we could do better without, yet my tax money goes to, for example, the Bridge To Nowhere in Alaska. I certainly think this project, which benefits among other things, America's # 1 port (per tonnage) deserves the merit of consideration.
I'm not arguing that we should be giving the money to the state of Louisiana, far from it. Just as if they were suggesting giving money to Alabama under Alabama's sole discretion, I'd veto this idea too. What I am saying though that this is a project certainly more worthy than a 200 million dollar bridge in the Alaskan wilderness, and it's certainly as worthy as every other pork project Congress approves. Not to say I'm a fan of pork, I'm not, but the simple fact of the matter is, a certain amount of pork will be spent every year, our money will be wasted, you can count on it, and when you look at it from that angle, I think this, as what is admittedly a mondified pork project, is certainly more deserveing than much of the pork in the country today, with far more reaching implications than say, a bridge in the near Arctic
However, if we do rebuilt the levees, they should be built to hold back a surge 15 feet higher than what was recorded in Biloxi, and it should be done entirely by the Corps of Engineer. It should be done in such a manner as that we never ever have to worry about this again. And it's not as if all of New Orleans flooded, the West Bank didn't, and the Quarter, Garden District, higher areas, faired well, all things considered. It was Lakeview and New Orleans East that took the biggest hit.
I personally think it would cost more to our economy to relocate everything than to rebuild it, if you consider all the new infrastructure that would have to be laid out, the fact that it would affect the shipping along the coast, as well as the petroleum producing grid. Basically, to use an old economic analogy, economically, I think it makes more sense to keep New Orleans in business than it does to shut down the plant. Thats just my personal opinion though.