[nuffsenuff]

Does anyone understand the term "Pragmatism"?

[stopem]

Can't wait to see the replies to this one ;)

[syriacus]

If this is handled correctly, a lot of people are finally going to get the good education in citizenship, industrial arts, economics and homemaking that they deserved when they were teenagers.

[Rennes Templar]

The care-taking role of the federal gov't. in massive disaster relief is not socialism. What's a gov't going to do, sit by and watch people die, lest it be called socialistic?

[cripplecreek]

We're watching the failures of europe and doing our very best to emulate them.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

You WILL learn to love Big Brother.

[xzins]

Whoever wrote this appears to be totally ignorant of the political power at stake right now.

The situation in New Orleans, even though I blame Blanco & Nagin and terrible planning for the horrible aftermath, was ultimately caused by a natural catastrophe.

I do believe that relief at that time is a requirement of the Federal Government which is mandated to ensure "the general welfare."

And, I also believe that if this President and this Congress do nothing, that the conservatives will lose miserably in the next election....maybe even at levels that would change the balance of power.

[betsyross1776]

Presidnet Bush is offering a hand up not a hand out . Believe me when we do this we will get our money back. We have done this before , lots of times we can recover give the president a chance.

[valley_dave]

We have to rebuild in the face of a natural disaster.

However, there will be an appalling number of no-bid contracts - whatever happened to fiscal conservatism?

I hope we figure out how to build stronger levees with some of this $200B.

This will be borrowed money, no other way to do it.

[johnb838]

• He, of course, had to pander to the Left and note that "poverty has its roots in racial discrimination." What a load of malarkey. Poverty has its roots in the current welfare state -- which is exactly what Bush is proposing

Poverty has its roots in corrupt politicians promising the world and never delivering, lining their pockets, and always, ALWAYS sucessfully blaming it on the Republicans.

The root cause of poverty is poor education, and the root cause of poor education is the socialist Teachers Unions. The Teachers Unions need to be BUSTED and we need a President with big COJONES like REAGAN who was willing to stand up and BUST a union when he deemed it necessary to the public good.

[Pagey]

Poverty has its roots in the current welfare state

What a perfectly pithy statement and thank you for it! What I found fascinating about his speech was this statement:"...It is entrepreneurship that creates jobs and opportunity; it is entrepreneurship that helps break the cycle of poverty..." Now that sounds nice and good and I'm all for helping our fellow citizens, but I have to ask, (someone has to) just how do you change the mindset of people who've been taught "The gov't owes me a living" their whole life? That is another unenviable task before us.