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California's senators want $23.5 million to complete high-priority flood-control projects identified by the Army Corps of Engineers.

In an article yesterday, it said:

The appeal to federal officials came after Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Friday in California in hopes of freeing up $75 million to $100 million in funding and suspending state environmental and contracting laws to speed repairs of 24 eroding levees.
Schwarzenegger gave Chertoff a letter for Bush on Monday requesting a federal disaster declaration and money to pay for the repairs. With the federal government normally picking up 75 percent of repairs for severely eroded levees, Schwarzenegger estimated the bill for Washington would be between $56 million and $75 million.

So, with all of these estimates, one can conclude that this great "emergency," which is being compared to Katrina, would take less than $100 million to eliminate (despite the quibbling over who picks up the tab).

It is strange that we should see headlines for a week about this great "crisis" when you take it in perspective (from a dollar standpoint). The amount to the state equates to less than 0.1% of the annual spending of the State. It represents about 1/5 to 1/4 of the amount the State will be spending on the new "After School Programs." If people's lives are truly in danger, the only "crisis" is that we have a bunch of inept politicians that some actually believe are going to protect the people.

The only reason I can see for them creating all the hoopla about this is to confuse the electorate into believing that the $100,000,000 spending on the safety of these levees have something to do with the $222,000,000,000 Strategic Growth Plan that they will be asking voters to swallow. Even if they are somehow related, I'd like to see the detailed justification for the remaining $221,900,000,000.

"The only reason I can see for them creating all the hoopla about this is to confuse the electorate into believing that the $100,000,000 spending on the safety of these levees have something to do with the $222,000,000,000 Strategic Growth Plan that they will be asking voters to swallow."

And which the voters will reject. Arnie's SGP is going nowhere.

The only reason I can see for them (The Wilsonegger gang) creating all the hoopla about this is to confuse the electorate into believing that the spending on the safety of these levees have something to do with the $222B Strategic Growth Plan that they will be asking voters to swallow.

Add together the fear of an unpredictable, non partisan, outside threat (nature), a false impression of urgency conveyed by the Katrina linkage and the very public cooperation of traditional political opponents and you've got it. BINGO! The magic recipe for success of the illogical.

These new imports from the White House are sharp. First they ran rings around Republican Party conservatives in San Jose and now they're faking out the whole state with the aid of liberal allies.