Posted on 09/02/2007 8:50:34 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
So, President and Mrs. Bush went down to New Orleans to commemorate the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina...Here's a pop quiz: How much money has Uncle Sam spent...since Hurricane Katrina ripped the place apart?
The grand total is $127 billion (including tax relief). That's right: a monstrous $127 billion. Of course, not a single media story has highlighted this gargantuan government-spending figure. But that number came straight from the White House...
This is an outrage. The entire GDP of the state of Louisiana is only $141 billion, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. So the cash spent there nearly matches the entire state gross GDP....And to make matters worse, by all accounts New Orleans ain't even fixed....Where in the hell did all this money go?...the White House fact sheet says $24 billion has been used to build houses and schools, repair damaged infrastructure and provide victims with a place to live. But isn't everyone complaining about the lack of housing?
Perhaps all this money should have been directly deposited in the bank accounts of the 300,000 people living in New Orleans. All divvied up, that $127 billion would come to $425,000 per person. After thanking Uncle Sam for their sudden windfall, residents could head to Southern California and buy homes now on sale thanks to the subprime mortgage crisis and bid up sagging house prices there.
The fact sheet says $7.1 billion went to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild the levees; the U.S. Department of Education spent $2 billion on local schools; the Laura Bush Foundation for America's Libraries has awarded more than $2.5 million...The administration provided $16.7 billion as part of the largest housing-recovery program in U.S. history...
Meanwhile...New Orleans has earned the distinct honor of becoming the murder capital of the world...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Should have cut-out the middle man and just given the cash to the politicians at the municipal, parish, and state level. The Feds have pured tonnes of cash into a state that is infamous for its skill at graft and corruption and people are shocked that so few people have actually received relief.
Great video. With all the money that has been spent there, they could have rebuilt the entire state and had something to set aside in savings, were it not for the corruption. And even worse, the whole tragedy could have been avoided had the federal money provided during the 20 years before Katrina been put to good use securing the levies and making other infrastructure improvements. Every elected official in Louisiana, and especially their Senators and members of Congress who brought home the bacon, are to blame, how ever much they holler.
This is nothing but another completely uninformed post by another self appointed expert who has no clue what he is talking about. Lawrence Kudlow should know better. This piece is full of misinformation. Sad but not surprising. If Kudlow can be so loose and careless with the truth then he really has very little credibility on anything else. There is no excuse for someone of his means and position to simply repeat myths without at least doing a minimal amount of research on his own.
What are the errors? He said he is citing a White House report. Is that report in error? Clarify, please.
You know, $127 Billion would have poured a lot of concrete, and allowed for a nice new port, which is the only reason for New Orleans to exist in the first place. And it would have made the new city higher than the water, would has a way of keeping things dry.
I don’t think he was being disingenuous, rather, it was my editing and cutting of the piece. If you read the original at the link, he says, “ But that number came straight from the White House in a fact sheet subtitled, “The Federal Government Is Fulfilling Its Commitment to Help the People of the Gulf Coast Rebuild.” If there is money that has been allocated but not spent, why would that be? I take it you don’t think corruption and incompetence is the problem there. With all the money floating around, regardless of New Orleans having to share some of it with the rest of the region, why haven’t things improved?
127 billion divided by the population of New Orleans and vicinity...= ??? per citizen. You do the math. My calculator can’t handle big numbers like that. Its enough for each citizen to retire on though.
Maybe not enough to retire, but enough to buy a house: 300,000 people living in New Orleans, divvied up, that $127 billion would come to $425,000 per person, according to Kudlow.
I read the whole piece. He is clearly being disingenous, or lazy. These are directly taken from the piece.
“This is an outrage. The entire GDP of the state of Louisiana is only $141 billion, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. So the cash spent there nearly matches the entire state gross GDP. That’s simply unbelievable. And to make matters worse, by all accounts New Orleans ain’t even fixed.”
By putting this in there he is clearly applying the entire 127 billion to Louisiana only.
“Perhaps all this money should have been directly deposited in the bank accounts of the 300,000 people living in New Orleans. All divvied up, that $127 billion would come to $425,000 per person.”
Again, the above was taken directly from the piece written by Kudlow. There can be no mistaking his assigning the entire 127 billion to only New Orleans, forget Louisiana.
A lot of the money hasn’t been spent because of the mountains of red tape involved. Granted, a lot of this red tape was put in by Louisiana itself to help safeguard the federal funds coming in here. The process people have to go thru to apply for funds is so stringent that it is frustrating and it takes an enormous amount of time. Those were put in precisely because of the corruption Louisiana has had in the past. We are trying to safeguard the peoples money.
As for corruption or incompetence being a factor? Incompetence is most certainly a factor from the city level to the state. Nagin and Blanco are both clueless. Hopefully we can elect Bobby Jindal governor and we can start to turn this around.
“300,000 people living in New Orleans, divvied up, that $127 billion would come to $425,000 per person, according to Kudlow.”
You are repeating something you now know to be untrue. Why would you do that?
The part of this column I liked best, which no doubt you believe is incorrect as well, was this: "Remember President Reagan's line during the 1980 campaign about how Lyndon Johnson fought a big-government spending war against poverty, and poverty won? Well think of all this Katrina spending as the Great Society Redux. And it failed. I suppose the current Bush administration would like to label this "compassionate conservatism." But guess what? That failed, too.
"Right from the start, New Orleans should have been turned into a tax-free enterprise zone. 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."
“The grand total is $127 billion (including tax relief). That’s right: a monstrous $127 billion”
Although it is observed briefly in passing in this article, I think that I should point out again that the $127 billion mentioned is money that has been designated for the recovery efforts of ALL the states impacted by the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes. Those storms were WILMA,KATRINA AND RITA. The states affected include FLORIDA,ALABAMA,MISSISSIPPI,LOUISIANA AND TEXAS. Of this amount, the federal government allocated about $60 billion to Louisiana for two storms, Katrina and Rita. A large part of that money was used for relocation assistance, emergency housing, levee repair,and debris removal. Less than $26 billion was spent on rebuilding the infrastructure, permanent construction projects, and money paid directly to Louisiana homeowners.
That $60 billion covered the TWO HURRICANES that hit Louisiana in 2005, Katrina on August 29 and Rita on September 24. Although Rita remained well to the south and west of New Orleans, a pre-landfall storm surge overwhelmed a levee of the Industrial Canal protecting the lower 9th Ward, a part of a fragile and already compromised levee system as repairs continued. At landfall, more parts of the levee wall were breached causing major reflooding in New Orleans. The original breaches had occurred a month earlier as a result of Hurricane Katrina.
In addition, residents of Cameron Parish, Calcasieu Parish, and parts of Jefferson Davis Parish, Acadia Parish, Iberia Parish, and Vermillion Parish were told to evacuate ahead of the storm. These areas also sustained extensive damage.
The bottom line here is that regardless of the neverending articles that want to make it seem that New Orleans is reaping some kind of financial windfall and that all of these billions are coming here, the amount of money quoted over and over and over again as being just for the recovery of New Orleans is WRONG. Louisiana, let alone New Orleans, DID NOT get $127 billion. That amount was for the ENTIRE GULF COAST REGION. That’s THREE HURRICANES and FIVE STATES! New Orleans did not even get the entire $60 billion that was allocated to the state. That amount must be shared with the areas of the state damaged by hurricane Rita.
Believe me when I tell you that we are grateful for every single thing that we did get, whether monitarily( really needed as 80% of the city was flooded and more or less decimated), emotionally, or spiritually. The local newspaper this week was full of the many stories of that gratitude from people who were helped by the kindness of strangers. Strangers who came here to help us in our hour of need (and are still coming) and strangers who met our citizens as they were dispersed across the country and showed them the love and thoughtfulness that they might shown a family member. These selfless acts will be part of the permanent fabric with which we will continue to rebuild New Orleans.
I am so sorry we were selfish and didn’t give you enough money. How much more do you think you need, including for remediation of the next five hurricanes? What amount would be fair? What do you think about Kudlow’s idea of making New Orleans a tax-free zone?
I should head down to the Big Easy for next year's Fat Tuesday celebration and demand first class room accommodations, 5-star worthy food, & free-flowing Johnnie Walker Blue label shots/drinks all comped since I've/we've paid for it many times over.
Hey, what are you, an illegal immigrant?
“I am so sorry we were selfish and didn’t give you enough money. How much more do you think you need, including for remediation of the next five hurricanes? What amount would be fair?”
It’s hard to imagine what it was in my post that could have elicited such a response. I was simply pointing out that the article was incorrect in implying that New Orleans has received $127 billion in recovery money and that in fact it was shared between five states.
So, how much more do you think you need, and what amount would be fair? Or has enough been provided? I am not being facetious, I am being serious. And I am still wondering what you think about the idea of setting up New Orleans as a tax-free zone and letting the private sector have a go at the problem?
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