[T]he Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
It would be one thing if the Bush Regime, in order to pay for the Iraq Debacle and the tax cuts, took funding away from a program to deflect dangerous earthbound asteroids. Sure, the Earth will eventually be struck by one, but an event like that may not occur for hundreds if not thousands of years. A Category 4 hurricane striking New Orleans, however, was a short-term certainty and our Republican leaders in the White House and Congress knew this, yet they cut funding that would have helped that important U.S. city withstand such an event. This goes beyond mere idiocy -- it is criminal.
The mainstream press is picking up this important story. Let's hope the coverage continues.
And, if any of you right-wing extremist bastards out there want to defend George "Shit-for-Brains" Bush and argue that there was no way he could have seen this coming, read this. And don't even try to give a lecture on how Bush opponents want to use this catastrophe for political purposes. As Kos points out:
After 9/11, the entire Republican Party went en masse to get Twin Towers ass tattoos. The Republican convention was a wholesale tribute to crass exploitation, the sets themselves designed to evoke the aftermath of the attack. Every domestic and international policy this administration -- no, this entire Republican government -- has produced has been heaved up before the public while waving the spectre of 9/11 as the catch-all vindication of every administration whim. Every tax cut, every civil rights issue, every budget cut, every budget expansion, no matter how tortured the logic must be, has some Republican senator standing on the Senate floor and proudly raping the corpses of that day as justification for their particular agenda item.
Oh, we've seen politicization of disaster. Every Republican campaign for the last four years has revolved around the politicization of disaster.
What Bush has done here is akin to a head of a household taking the rent money and heading to the craps table. Bush has crapped out in Iraq, and thousands of people in New Orleans who relied on Bush to do the right thing are either dead, dying, or about to be evicted.
1 comment:
Jesus, that article is dated 12-01. They had four years to plan for this, and his predictions came true. FEMA is slow on its feet, and Bush is doing his usual, "well, uhm, we need to help..." The problem with this country is that the lack of planning and financial support PRIOR to such disasters results in such huge financial and emotional disaster when it comes to fruition. Just like medicade- we won't pay for preventative treatment, but when you have that heart attack, we;ll put you up in a nice room for a week and give you all the drugs that you want. But I digress.
Ease
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