$200 billion government bribe for New Orleans

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
isn't it also funny that the Federal government refused to allot funds to upgrade the levees around New Orleans to Category 4-proof?

Actually, the Federal government allocated and started work on upgrading the levees and sea walls around New Orleans to Category 5. But, an environmental group sued in federal court, and got the work stopped.

The court did allow for the work to continue if a study on the impact was made. However, the money that was originally allocated to perform that study was redirected by the state government of Lousianna into other projects. The study was never done. The money for the upgrade was then siphoned off to other things.

Just your typical politically sensitive government in action.

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by DanS
I view this as nothing more than Bush and the Republicans in the congress buying votes with my tax money. They will do anything with my tax money so that the congress stays in GOP hands come next November. The Northeast and Western US should be up in arms over this.

Here's the deal as I see it. Our society is set up so that a community pays its own way.

By the federal government spending such huge sums of money on recovery from Katrina, the federal government is offering insurance from these 30-year catastrophic storms and is therefore potentially taking away money from areas that are economically viable and putting it into areas that aren't economically viable (i.e., a big rat hole). But more than that, the federal government is short-circuiting the investment choices of the local communities. The community will not "own" the infrastructure in their communities, but rather the federal government will. Over time, that means everybody deals with a faceless Washington, D.C. bureaucracy to get stuff done in their communities, rather than looking after themselves.

A few points:
1) Government always spends *our* money to buy themselves votes. Always have, always will.

2) The Port of New Orleans benefits the vast majority of America. It's the #4 port in the world. The entirety of the continental states need that port.

3) DC loves to own everything around you. That's their job... to spread their power and influence.

4) We, the people, demand that our Federal Government do this. We've made it a law. Our government is compelled by our laws to step in and shoulder the costs. This might be dumb on our part (ie, why should people in Michigan pay for homes destroyed by hurricanes in Florida?), but it is what *we* have decided. You should start educating your fellow citizenry how their tax money is subsidizing people living in high risk areas (flood, storm, tornado, earthquake, etc etc etc).

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by DanS
The proposition should rise or fall on its own merits.

As this storm demonstrates, they didn't spend the necessary money in the first place. Why would the federal government spend money on something that the locals didn't think was sufficiently worthwhile in the first place?

Economics by themselves guarantees that the Port of New Orleans will be rebuilt as it is needed. However, as that is so important to the rest of our country (consider that 1/4 of all food, and 1/2 of all our energy needs such as GAS and HEATING OIL go through that port), that's why Bush is just dumping paper money on it.

You do realize that 10% of our refineries are there, right? That guarantees that we'd rebuild the area, just by itself. Why? Because we cannot build a single refinery in the States due to the current environmental protection in place. But we can rebuild old ones.

The Port of NO is too darn important to all the US. Now, we don't need all the rest remanants of Plantation Time down there. But, considering this is LA we are talking about, we will likely get a good bit of that back as well. Oh well. Can't get everything...

[Gatekeeper]

Well, hey, look at the bright side: Bush said today that there won't be any tax increases to fund his $200 billion (estimated) rebuilding effort.

*scurries out of thread*

[DanS]

Economics by themselves guarantees that the Port of New Orleans will be rebuilt as it is needed.

No need. It wasn't destroyed. It's in operation as we type. The LOOP is also operating at full capacity, AFAIK.

[Darkstar]

That is a bright side.

I heard recently that if all the pork is cut of the last passed Transportation, Farm, and Energy bills, that would more then cover all the funds that the government/Bush says will be sent/needed.

Of course, when was the last time the government ever got a cost of something right?

[DanS]

I think we cross-posted. Were you responding to me?

[Darkstar]

What? Cross post? Here? That never happens.

[Chemical Ollie]

It's not called cross-editieng, it's called DANSING!

[mrmitchell]

I heard recently that if all the pork is cut of the last passed Transportation, Farm, and Energy bills, that would more then cover all the funds that the government/Bush says will be sent/needed.

What "pork" are you saying we cut?

Isn't that what the entire transportation bill is? Money doled out to states to do local projects? (Plus a couple million here and there for AMTRAK, etc...no one cares about that anyway)

Why shouldn't states and citizens get money for local projects if they are paying taxes? Those millions here and there mean a huge amount to individual cities.

[mrmitchell]

In fact we need more money...

Federal Government Sends Some, But Not Enough, Money to Arkansas

Little Rock (AP) - Federal money is starting to funnel into Arkansas to help it pay for the highest concentration of refugees in the country and the second most overall, but $136,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for shelters and other assistance lags well behind other states bordering Louisiana and Mississippi.

Arkansas also will not receive $30 million dollars it requested from the Labor Department to create jobs for displaced hurricane victims, and state and federal officials are not pleased. Governor Huckabee expressed disappointment that Texas, the state that received the most refugees, received $75 million while Arkansas, with the second highest refugee count per capita,got nothing.

Senator Blanche Lincoln says it is inexcusable that Arkansas was not recognized by the administration as one of the key states housing Hurricane Katrina evacuees. The governor and Senator Mark Pryor will meet Friday over Arkansas aid for hurricane victims.

We are housing thousands and thousands of refugees. This is a ridiculous amount of money. What are the feds thinking???

EDIT: Additional info

Arkansas has 75,000 refugees
And $0 for job assistance for those refugees
And as of now 0 promises from the feds that we will be reimbursed for doing Medicaid, food stamps, etc. for evacuees

LITTLE ROCK, AR - State and federal officials are dismayed that the federal Labor Department gave millions of dollars to Texas and the three states hit by Hurricane Katrina to help find jobs for displaced workers, but did not give any to Arkansas.

Senator Blanche Lincoln said the Labor Department didn't consider how it was distributing the money and ran out of funds before Arkansas could get any help. Governor Mike Huckabee was also disappointed that his state continues to be overlooked for its role in relief efforts by the federal agencies involved.

Huckabee has already expressed his displeasure with FEMA, which didn't seem to know that Arkansas had taken in 75,000 refugees, the second-most of any state. State officials are also worried that they won't be reimbursed for providing state-administered benefits like Medicaid or food stamps to the victims.

Senator Mark Pryor said President Bush missed a golden opportunity in his address to the nation last night to bring Democrats and Republicans together over the tragedy. He said political games are still being played over who is to blame for a poor emergency response.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

[Darkstar]

Well, how about a $100 million bridge in Alaska to an island of 75 people, in which the people don't want the bridge? That's a good start. The islanders don't want the bridge, so why waste the money doing it?

A lot of the local projects aren't thing like building a loop around a metro. It's things like widening the road that runs to the Kennedy private compound outside a national park, so that the Kennedy clan can more easily drive their Winnebagos or their big SUVS towing their 35' boat back to their private home surrounded by the national park. Should the tax payers really be paying for that? Or would that money do better going to the Gulf?

There's items in there to pave lumbering paths. Why should the tax payers pay money to help the lumbering companies make more money off of federal land? Let the companies pay for that.

Then there's the snowmobile trail being cut through Yellowstone to let the Senator there more easily reach his vacation home. He can wait a couple of years for that, right? Better to spend that money helping to fix important infrastructure.

There's tons of things like that in most of these things. Indeed, Energy bill has some unassociated dredging work in it for the NO area! Put that money towards something people will use, rather then being a project to make deep water fish more easily fished from Blanko's cousin's house.

Remember, Congress can always delay those personal pork projects for a few years. Congress would just pass those personal porking later anyways. They always do.

I'm not against stopping all pork (although the pet projects that are only to bennie Congress and its own family, that I'd like to see stopped entirely). I think we can certainly delay the normal porking to fund what we need to for the Gulf this year.

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by mrmitchell
In fact we need more money...

We are housing thousands and thousands of refugees. This is a ridiculous amount of money. What are the feds thinking???

Humm... they were probably thinking of Clinton and his remarkable Double Wide Presidential Library. Paying back for recent comments by the Clintons, anyone?

Seriously, it is more likely that it is the media influence... I haven't seen one story mention Arkansaw. No media, no help. You know, like most things.

[mrmitchell]

Originally posted by Darkstar

You make a lot of common sense suggestions but the vast majority of pork actually benefits the entire community. $100M here or there is a drop in the federal bucket...the only way you'll really cut the deficit is going after the huge spenders like the defense department ($500B soon) or corporate welfare (iirc $45-60B?). Otherwise it's like you're just trying to make a haystack smaller by picking out all the needles.

Recent comments by the Clintons? Did I miss something?

(But yeah I did notice...national media has totally overlooked our state )

[Urban Ranger]

I dunno. It appears that there is more pork in the defense sector than everywhere else.