Posted on 08/30/2007 8:41:10 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
Federal Spending & Budget Issues August 30, 2007
THE BIG EASY'S BILLION DOLLAR BOONDOGGLE The idea of using federal money to rebuild cities is the quintessential liberal vision. And given the dreadful results in New Orleans, we can say that the government's billions spent so far represents the quintessential failure of that liberal vision, says Lawrence Kudlow, host of CNBC's Kudlow & Company.
Consider:
So far, the federal government has spent $127 billion (including tax relief) on post-Katrina New Orleans. The entire gross domestic product (GDP) of the state of Louisiana is only $141 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. If the relief money had been divvied up among residents, the $127 billion would come to $425,000 per person. So the cash spent there nearly matches the entire state's GDP, says Kudlow. And to make matters worse, by all accounts New Orleans isn't even fixed. Further, according to an article by Nicole Gelinas at the Manhattan Institute:
New Orleans has earned the distinct honor of becoming the murder capital of the world. The murder rate is 40 percent higher than before Katrina and twice as high as other dangerous cities like Detroit, Newark, N.J., and Washington, D.C. Right from the start, New Orleans should have been turned into a tax-free enterprise zone, says Kudlow. No income taxes, no corporate taxes, no capital-gains taxes. The only tax would have been a sales tax paid on direct transactions. A tax-free New Orleans would have attracted tens of billions of dollars in business and real-estate investment. This in turn would have helped rebuild the cities, schools and hospitals. Private-sector entrepreneurs would have succeeded where big-government bureaucrats and regulators have so abysmally failed.
Source: Lawrence Kudlow, "The Big Easy's Billion Dollar Boondoggle," Townhall.com, August 30, 2007.
For text:
http://townhall.com/columnists/LawrenceKudlow/2007/08/30/the_big_easys_billion_dollar_boondoggle?page=full&comments=true
For more on Federal Spending & Budget Issues:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=25
I'm sure in some areas of NO that isn't any different then it was pre-Katrina.
Kindly remember that the "aid" is spread over at least three states, that it includes billions in claims insured by the National Flood Insurance Program -- for which we pay premiums -- and that the overwhelming majority of the aid received in NOLA should be counted as reparations for a man-made disaster: the failure of flood control, structures whose design and construction were a Federal responsibility.
Then it was wasted by the same Federal govt. that created not only this disaster but also the sociologically disastrous welfare underclass that embarrassed us on national TV.
Not all of New Orleans has a brain deficit as commonly believed. New Orleans is a port city. Commerce is shipped up the Mississippi to benefit the rest of the states. Put New Orleans 100 miles inland and you have no port or transport of goods. The “city” you are referring to made out OK. It was the lower ninth ward they keep talking about and New Orleans East and Lake shore drive that were devastated. Money misspent? Absolutely. We have a reputation for that kind of thing. But, not all of us are of that ilk. I understand how the country feels, but I made out just fine with Katrina and didn't take the government to the cleaners in the process. Just my two cents.
“NOLA is living proof that more tax money is not the answer................”
And a life-example of how efficient government-controlled socialized
medicine will be.
So they couldhave offered every person $100,000 to buy a house ANYWHERE they wanted, and still come out ahead?
I am PO’d on so many levels with this...
Why so much on ONE city?
Yesterday, a FOX news reporter in NO was whining that after two years, not only was there still debris in people’s yards but THEIR LAWNS HADN’T BEEN MOWED.
I believe I saw that broadcast. They interviewed a woman from the lower ninth ward and she was saying that nothing was done in her area - everything was done in the French Quarter. The French Quarter didn’t have a scratch from Katrina the only thing it suffered was lack of business. The press buys all this garbarge from the same people all the time. Many residents lost or had damage to their homes in the surrounding areas (Metairie, Kenner). Those areas are up and running now and most of the trailers are gone. You can barely see damage in our areas.
Exactly. The best thing ever to happen to N.O.
Rebuild the “Port of New Orleans” where it stands. Moving thousands of poor residents back into the flood area below sea level is lunacy!
Thank you. I once roomed with a gal from Lake Charles some years ago. She loved her hometown which kept me wondering why she moved to the District of Columbia where I worked. We didn’t keep in touch but post-Katrina, I wonder about her and how Lake Charles turned out.
That bastard Bush! He won't let the colored folks own lawn mowers! (Lessing they use them on da Man's lawn.)
new orleans has been built 100 miles inland. it’s called “Baton Rouge”
Just after the hurricane, the feds could have announced that they were giving each resident of the disaster area a check for $250,000 to cover their house and expenses.
We would all probably have been outraged at the time.
We could not have imagined how much cheaper that would have been.
Bingo
That's what they did after the devastating hurricane that hit Galveston a hundred years ago (still holds the record as the United States' deadliest natural disaster.) = moved the port facilities up-river many miles inland to Houston
Nearly 113 BILLION tax payers dollars have disappeared into the rat-hole of what was, even PRE-Katrina, the most corrupt city of the nation - and where this money went is neither visible nor accounted for by the same officials that ran the city before,,,
We have the right to demand accountability -
and the feasibility of rebuilding in an area so far below sea level, on the edge of the sea, is beyond ludicrous. Rebuild on the high ground - move the rest inland. Galveston was smart enough to - a hundred years ago -
Let's hound the media and the politicians to get an accounting of where 127 BILLION dollars to the "Chocolate City" have gone!
For one thing, turning a light on that will also turn a light on the criminal negligence of actions taken and NOT taken by Blanco and Nagin - some sheeple might even get a clue that it was not Bush and FEMA that were responsible for those first days of chaos...
2 years later the people are still complaining they didn’t get enough help. Heard one on the radio the other day. Sad.
The people of NOLA, no matter where they are living now, have worn out the sympathy card. They were generally worthless before Katrina and they have not changed.
It’s gotta be hard to mow water.
Rebuild the “Port of New Orleans” where it stands. Moving thousands of poor residents back into the flood area below sea level is lunacy!
I agree with you. No understands that the average person from the Greater New Orleans area doen’t want to rebuild the poverty area. The Democrats want the people to come back so they can control the “chocolate” city once again. Also, we had a large Vietnamese population including a church of 10,000 in New Orleans East. They were mostly displaced never to return. Very hardworking people trying to better themselves yet you never see stories about them. Believe me, nobody wants generational poverty and murder in their back yards.
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