Posted on 01/29/2006 6:51:06 AM PST by Uncle Sham
Political Horizons for Jan. 29
Baker’s relief bill deserves try
By JOHN LAPLANTE
Published: Jan 29, 2006
Ford to City: Drop Dead,” a legendary headline screamed in 1975, when a president refused to bail out New York City from financial disaster.
Change the president and the locale, and Louisiana hurricane victims might be forgiven for thinking the same thing.
After hemming and hawing for months about U.S. Rep. Richard Baker’s home-buyout bill, and never really saying what he had against it, Bush brushed it aside last week.
Only after aides revealed his opposition did Bush grant a one-paragraph explanation. It amounted to three things: Don’t create more bureaucracy; we already gave you people lots of money; and Louisiana doesn’t have a plan.
Baker and Gov. Kathleen Blanco countered the Baker bill is so important it amounts to “the plan.”
Blanco said she only really controls $6.2 billion in recovery money that will be stretched far too thin to aid owners of 200,000 destroyed or damaged homes.
She said opposing bureaucracy is an odd argument for any federal officials to make.
What she should argue is that Baker’s bill is a plan for people, not politicians.
Yes, the bill would set up a new bureaucracy called the Louisiana Recovery Corp., but this is not an open-ended promise to hand out money to politicians or write checks to the idle.
The LRC is supposed to be a hard-nosed business proposition. It would pay willing homeowners some, but not all, of the equity in their homes.
If they have a mortgage, the agency would pay it off, giving lenders back some, but not all, of their investment.
The agency would clean up the property and, working with local interests, market it to investors for redevelopment.
The LRC should take some decisions from politicians and give them to homeowners. They could take less and get on with their lives or keep their property in hopes of working out a better deal some other way. The agency would not take land against the owners’ will.
The corporation could transform many homeowners from helpless victims to people with some hope for the future. It could block a wave of foreclosures that might wipe out tens of thousands of families’ finances.
It could help head off statewide economic stagnation and spur speedy, organized recovery for communities that must come back for the state to recover.
Baker said he’s not giving up. He sees support in both chambers of Congress and says he has passed significant legislation over Bush’s objection before. But the opposition of a president whose party controls Congress is a major setback.
In fairness to Bush, Louisiana leaders made it easy for him to so casually shrug off the bill.
Our U.S. senators tried to grab $250 billion on sympathy instead of catalogued needs. The governor and Legislature found money for political projects during the crisis and so far have done little to adjust state government to the vastly different needs. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin famously made blackness, not prosperity, his top goal.
Some Louisiana leaders also exude an air of entitlement, even arrogance, demanding Washington immediately turn over as much taxpayer money as the state demands.
The Baker bill is not another toy for Louisiana politicians to play with or a well-intentioned program for them to screw up. It should actually bypass the politicians by dealing mostly with residents and bankers and developers.
Bush would appoint the managers of the agency, with Blanco suggesting only two. The U.S. treasury secretary would have final say over how much money the agency can borrow.
The bill is founded in Baker’s long expertise in the complexities of housing finance and the federal government’s long interest in affordable homes as a big part of the American dream.
Baker’s bill also is complex and in some ways unprecedented, and who knows how wily politicians, lawyers or speculators might try to abuse it?
Baker says he is willing to compromise. He should be. Louisiana is asking the nation to take a huge risk by borrowing up to $30 billion. Limits and controls are appropriate to minimize the chance of abuse.
Risks and reservations should not sink the bill without a proper airing.
The idea is worth more than months of foot-shuffling and a sudden brush-off by the president.
The 200,000 families that might directly benefit from it, and the 4.5 million Louisiana residents affected by their state’s continued crisis, deserve a hearing.
John LaPlante is Capitol bureau editor for The Advocate.
Louisiana is being told to help itself by most posters on this thread. Unlike many of the states where these posters live, Louisiana actually has the ability to do just that. It's gonna cost you either way. That's not extortion, it's simple economics of supply and demand.
By the actual definition you post here you are correct. I was discussing the issue as a criminal offense. I'm not sure there is any of that here. Also, going strictly by the definition of fraud there is some fraud I approve of. Is an undercover agent involved in some kind of trickery? Is he an imposter? If that is fraud then I approve of it in that case. Do you?
What does this proposed bill have to do with Nagin? He's not getting any of the money. It's not even a gift, but a loan to be repaid.
Cool, huh?
Louisiana has a plan. Washington will supply the money, Louisiana politicians will supply the pork.
The thing being called into question here is the ethics of the NO and LA government, and it is pretty clear it stinks. Our system falls apart without highly ethical people in positions of power - LA fails, and cannot be saved by the US government throwing money into this pit.
Money sent to NO or LA will be squandered and misdirected, as in the past, with the same bad actors in positions of power.
You make a valid point. I will say that the charity and federal aid committed to Louisiana was of a grand proportion and that many, myself included, feel that there should be a limit to which tax payers should be required to support rebuilding of KNOWN areas of hurricane activity. I wish for you the best....
I drive 60 miles every day to work at 5 AM and listen to WLW on the radio clear as a bell during the trip. What I hear is bitching about insurance payments, needing MORE budgeted money from the government, "I ain't got MY FEMA trailer", and all the crap left over from the hurricane and levee breaks that ain't cleaned but by whoever. What I very rarely hear is recounts of people telling of what THEY'VE done and are CURRENTLY doing to clean things up and move on.
Your governor and mayor HAVEN'T shown how and where they intend to spend what they've already been budgeted by Congress (other than calling the Baker Plan a plan for rebuilding). I don't call a plan to buy out every damn blown out, water-logged dwelling a plan; I call it what it is -- giveaway, plain and simple. I don't hear anything about what the residents of Louisiana have committed to do, only HOW MUCH money they want.
If I ever get to speak to my Congressman or Senator(s), I'm going to tell them to make sure that continue to do what they've been doing --demanding a realistic plan and accounting for the money Louisans's being given.....
We all know that. It's a REQUIRED advisement in every single home owners policy issued in this country.
A lot of the homes destroyed were in areas that were not considered flood zones
You can buy flood insurance on ANY PIECE OF LAND in this country.
so they were told by insurers and mortgage companies that flood insurance was not required.
Sorry, that's just not how it happens; people are advised that their home owners policy doesn't cover flooding and are INSTRUCTED where to go to get it.
Why don't you all stop pretending it's not your own fault? Everybody with a lick of sense new that entire deltar area was SUBJECT to flooding. Hell, I live in North Carolina and I knew it; why didn't you?
I give a lot of credit for this idea to some very astute politicians in the State of Lousiana.
I'm beginning to think that if the LA people are insisting that WE pay for this that WE should have a "national dialog" (liberals LOVE those, don't they?) about just how it should be rebuilt.
If we pay, we should have a say.
Exactly.
Snopes is a leftist site, this is the same site that said the Clinton Bodycount was false.
Bump.
Boy that will be real smart for your tourism industry, piss off the rest of the nation. And as energy industry well why do I have a feeling that the oil companies will move their refineries to lower tax states, close marginal fields and get their oil from cheaper places. At the very least when the next big hurricane comes, opps sorry but the rest of the nation may not help.
Has anyone heard if the enviromentalists or government will try to reverse the 1970's court decision preventing flood gates built on the lake by New Orleans? If those gates was built then chances are New Orleans would be much more safe even with the current levees.
Hey, Galveston Grl - how are the school buses doing in Galveston - you know, the ones used to evacuate those without cars when Rita was approaching?
I think a lot of places would fail your "highly ethical people in power test". Unless you think N.O. and Louisiana leaders and government are the only ones with ethical problems among our politicians. In fairness I don't think that is what you believe and frankly I don't trust most of them, no matter where they are from. I would urge the feds and anybody else to completely control where any money given to Louisiana is spent. Audit it till the cows come home as far as I'm concerned.
Which ones - the ones in office or the ones currently in prison?
Well, here's an idea from North Carolina: we can do the same thing for goods YOU need.
And if you insist on "blackmailing" the rest of us to rebuild your state, I'll lobby MY senators and congress people to vote against all the other money you want from the federal government.
See how that works?
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