Free Republic

While former Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco is making the most of her time out of office delivering speeches and writing a book, there's more trouble brewing for her back in the capital. From today's New Orleans Times-Picayune: In the final weeks of Gov. Kathleen Blanco's administration, state officials quietly increased the size of the Road Home management contract from $756 million to $912 million, rewarding a contractor the Legislature wanted to fire, auditors questioned and thousands of homeowner applicants cursed. The Blanco administration never told the public about the 25 percent compensation increase for ICF International that was added to...

Yesterday, it was announced that a grand total of 26 people have received their cash settlements from the Louisiana Recovery Authority. This is out of a total of 123,000 potential applicants. LRA leaders are touting the numbers as progress, which sure sounds like spin to me. In the meantime, thousands of poor victims make difficult decisions every day whether to stay in the state or leave. Unfortunately, due to the slow pace of the Road Home plan, thousands have opted to leave. Along with concerns about levees, political corruption, poor schools, the slow pace of relief by the LRA is...