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.
Perhaps you should ask yourself why that is?
Could it be because of all the hatred, insults, ignorance and abuse that was heaped on the government AND THIS COUNTRY from the tv screens in our living rooms?
Could it be because nothing seems like enough?
Could it be because a lot of us live in hurricane states and for years have known just what the odds are and just what needs to be done to PREPARE.
Did you not know you lived below sea level?
Doesn't it even occur to you that Mississippi endured the same storm you did and yet we don't see all the insults, hatred, etc., coming from them?
Do you not realize it takes TIME to come back from something like this?
And don't even try the "nobody is looking for a handout" on us; we're not that dumb; everybody that lived in that delta area should have had flood insurance; it's not OUR fault they didn't. Lots of your fellow freepers need our help and understanding. No one is looking for a hand-out.
And again I ask (since you all have managed to ignore every single question asked to you about it) why should WE pay your home mortgages?
No one is getting anything from their insurance policies right now, at least very few are getting settlments that are acceptable.
Acceptable to who? I'd bet they are getting what they PAID FOR, and evidently that's not enough.
BTW, on the subject of self-help, what's wrong with Louisiana financing it's own recovery through taxation on oil and gas use of our coastline? Do you want oil and gas rigs off the coast of North Carolina?
Oh, nothing, except that you used it as a threat when you didn't get the money you demanded. The other 49 states can play that way, too.
In fact, now that you brought it up, I'd say that if you do go that way, the federal government shouldn't give you one more dime.
should have been left off the 7th paragraph.
Good post.
Lots of your fellow freepers need our help and understanding.
I resent the fact that you made that statement here on this forum.
I, along with many others, stayed on this forum 24/7 offering help and advice, not to mention anything we could do for the FREEPERS here that were in the paht of this storm.
We've opened our homes and our wallets to make donations as we could.
And as for this:
Do you want oil and gas rigs off the coast of North Carolina?
If it keeps a$$hole states like Louisiana from blackmailing us with TARIFFS, I'll sink the first one myself.
I'm sick to DEATH of being blackmailed financially and emotionally by the new crack in this country, 'victimhood."
And it's particularly distateful coming from someone who evidently is on this forum because he/she/it considers himself a conservative.
Thanks. I'm a little bit irrked by this topic.....LOL.
Well, that's two freepers who were formerly willing to help Louisiana who could well change their minds because of the attitudes of those in that state.
You and I had our differences on the Katrina threads, but I will say that your responses were correct, mia culpa. As for this thread....well, I agree completely. Good luck with your trees, sounds like firewood for next winter to me...out here fire is presently a no-no, it's like living with gasoline as a yard...LOL.
Let me see if I get this right, Howlin. First, you don't want the feds to help us as it is. Then you don't want us to even help ourselves if we have the ability to do so. If the feds can't help us, and we are not allowed to help ourselves, how are we going to fix things? How long should we wait on you to figure it out?
Great post!
...but he didn't admit to any fraud. I am aware that he admitted they inflated the numbers "to deter crime".
Gosh, that's so internally contradictory, did it hurt?
Inflating numbers IS fraud. Detering criminals by posting a large number of phantom police is laughable (You criminals better watch out, we have two cops for every criminal in this city!!). As if muggers and carjackers do a risk analysis by reviewing the city police department website.
And when you pad a payroll, how do you know where the money goes? Does the payroll accountant make a clear transfer of funds to the authorized account for "radios". Yeah, that's a good example of good governance. And Federal funds for law enforcement are tied to city police rolls (remember Clinton's hundred thousand police). So wasn't the federal taxpayer being defrauded?
What is the difference between phony payroll and Enron phony loans and trades? NOTHING, its all fraud.
This is big-time fraud and I hope that prison time follows it
You did a great rant. The folks of Louisiana suffered greatly, but they've worn out their pleas for help with their incessant demands, pointing the finger everywhere except at themselves, and their threats.
I'm a little tired of their criminals terrorizing the streets of Houston where 23 of our "guests" have already committed murders since arriving, and that's just the ones we have solved.
Everything is Bush's fault, from the phony headline originally put on this thread, to everything else in that state that can possibly be blamed on him.
I'm sick of it.
There were lots of hurricanes last year. The whining is only coming from one place. The rest of us are cleaning up and getting on with our lives.
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?"
We won't need any money from the Federal government if we are able to push through the tax on the Major Corporations using pipelines across the State of Lousiana to pass their oil and gas to the rest of the Country. We will have all we need and then some.
What's interesting is this pervasive attitude here on Free Republic that says over and over ad nauseum: "let Lousiana fix their own damned problems, I'm tired of my hard-earned tax money going to fix their problems." Okay fine! So Louisiana is pushing to find a viable solution and everyone here wants to bitch about that too.
I'm curious to know what wonderful Natural Resource you State contributes to Louisiana or the rest of the Country which would, if withheld, put us to our knees? Turnips? Trees? Do tell!
I'm sorry to have to tell you that except for Mississippi most people don't care. The MSM managed to use up any feelings of compassion that the people had for NO and they can't seem to get it back.
Well, they are pine. No help there.
We should have taken them down after the ice storm years ago -- and with all the wind we've having, I'm getting squirrely about it.
And I'm like dirtboy, I don't remember from one thread to the next who I have disagreements with. :-) If I was ugly, I apologize!
If that is your attitude, then the $250 billion that y'all are demanding from the American taxpayer can be better spent to re-route those pipelines around your state.
Apparently Louisiana has not learned the first rule of holes. When you find yourself in one, stop digging.
But, then again, they want to rebuild parts of a city that are below sea level.
One of the reasons you're getting in so much trouble on this thread is because you keep distoring what people on here are saying.
For some reason, you need to put words in people's posts that aren't there.
I am fine with what the government has done so far; I'm fine with the amount and the time it's taken.
What I'm against is me having to pay off your mortgage and buy you a new house.
If the feds can't help us....
You keep saying 'the feds.' Don't you mean the United States taxpayers?
And we ARE helping you, just not as much as you think we should evidently.
How long should we wait on you to figure it out?
People are still living in trailers in eastern North Carolina from Hurricane Floyd. Of course, most of them are the ones who are STILL waiting for "Uncle Sam" to do it for them.
However long it takes will depend on what you do.
Let me ask you this: is most of Louisiana, except the New Orleans area helping itself?
Fine by me. Just don't come back here bitching when each individual state decides to impose a tariff on the goods their state produces that will cost you more money.
I'm curious to know what wonderful Natural Resource you State contributes to Louisiana or the rest of the Country which would, if withheld, put us to our knees? Turnips? Trees? Do tell!
See what I mean; you just can't make a credible defense of your blackmail and so you resort to snotty remarks.
I'll put you down in the "Nothing the Government Will Do Will Ever Be Enough" column.
Understood. Parts of Texas and Oklahoma have been declared disaster zones by FEMA.....wildfire....I have seen several blinking signs stating that burn barrels and tossing smokes out the window is verboten. All in all, we fend for ourselves, I've mowed the high grass and watered the lawn...not much else I can do. For some reason, I don't think Louisianans are going to send money to me when the wildfires whip through with 40 MPH winds driving them.....
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