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.
I assume you couldn't come up with any Natural Resource your State produces to the benefit of the rest of the Nation. Nice diversionary tactic then to call my statements "snotty." You are quite a skilled debator!
agreed absolutely.
We bought a home on the N shore of Lake Ponchartrain in 1997. I have a very clear memory of the flood maps presented to us and the level of protection (C) that I would have to have due to my 6 foot elevation above sea level.
This isn't rocket science.
There's long been a pervasive attitude in Louisiana that government exists to line people's pockets. It utterly corrupted the state government decades ago and nothing ever changed.
In many respects, it's not even a question of wanting to get out there with a chainsaw to clean things up. It's about expecting a government grant where they can get a kickback for awarding the job to someone else who may or may not ever show up.
I don't think anyone can truly understand Louisiana until they've lived there and has seen what really goes on.
So telling that you ignored the rest of my post.
And for future reference, I don't answer strawmen questions.
I also am completely turned off by gratuitous capitalization.
IMO, the good people of Louisiana and the media have now moved into what we can call the "Woodward & Berstein Defense of Watergate" mode.
You know, no matter what the scandal, Woodward and Bernstein rush to the nearest microphone to declare 'No, this isn't as bad as Watergate,' because, of course, they OWN that and can't have any other scandal (i.e., disaster) co-opt that title.
We're fast approaching that with New Orleans.
"I also am completely turned off by gratuitous capitalization."
Oooookaaaaaaaaaay, Whatever that is..........it's duly noted!
I live in North Carolina, miles from any large river or creek; my homeowners policy comes every single year with a pull-out disclaimer telling me that it doesn't cover flooding and telling me who to call to get some.
Well, we could start by not shipping 80% of all the grain in the Midwest via the Port of New Orleans. Frankly, without the Port, is there even a reason for New Orleans to exist?
North Carolina has a really nice port in Wilmington. :-)
"Frankly, without the Port, is there even a reason for New Orleans to exist?"
Good Point. I failed to mention the importance of our Port, the fifth largest in the World! Thank you for bringing another N.O.'s asset to the fore.
I had a friend who was in management at the Port of NO. At the time it mainly moved metal. Your port is not even in the top 10 in world rankings.
http://geography.about.com/cs/transportation/a/aa061603.htm
FRiend, no one is questioning the value of Louisiana nor your contributions to the USA.....we question billions of dollars going to political hacks and how it will be spent.
You might want to check out your own links before posting, sometimes they can belie your own statement: "Your port is not even in the top 10 in world rankings."
New Orleans, according to the link you posted, is #3 in the World in volume. If you want to use some other link to support your statement please try again. I'll be waiting.
Precisely.
"we question billions of dollars going to political hacks and how it will be spent."
We agree! Whatever system used for the billions sent to Louisiana should be transparent and accountable to the American taxpayer, EVERY DIME OF IT!!!
This might be what you'll want to consider when we start taxing it at the port of New Orleans. Only one problem. Where you gonna ship it? BTW, We're here to help.
Mississippi is paying their homeowners $150,000. I guess it's okay because Hailey Barbour is a big pubbie. Where's the outrage over the feds bailing out the homeowners in MS who were flooded out without flood insurance? It is the same issue. It just happens to be that a major US city was destroyed instead of the smaller communities that usually get wiped out during hurricane season.
Had the state not been hit just as hard by Hurricane Rita three weeks later in the second highest income producing section of the state we would not need help. However, everybody always forgets about Hurricane Rita and the widespread devastation over a greater area of the state.
I say tax the hell out of the gasoline and heating fuel and use our natural resources to pay for the rebuilding. Maybe then some of those other states will start drilling off of their coasts.
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