Too Much Money?
Opinion Journal
Back in October I extrapolated the funding that Grand Forks received after the 1997 flood to the Katrina disaster. By my rough figuring Louisiana and Mississippi needed $88 Billion to equal the support of Grand Forks. According to Opinion Journal $122 Billion. Reportedly the money spent in New Orleans hasn't really helped those that need it most. Are we to believe that if we throw more money at the problem they'll do any better?
Back in my October post I asked this question to our Senator, Kent Conrad:
Louisiana politicians aren't satisfied with the generosity they've seen from the rest of the country. Rather, they are demanding another $250 Billion. It's time for them to go to work, not to wait for more money.
"New Orleans has suffered from the trauma of three crises," says Louisiana Congressman Bobby Jindal. "First was the hurricane, second was the levees breaking and third has been the widespread incompetence of the federal, state and local government response. This has been a one-year case study in bureaucracy and red tape at its very worst."
Turned its back? As the chart nearby indicates, Congress has approved $122.5 billion for the Gulf Region, a figure incomprehensible in size to anyone but, well, a politician. The real wonder is that anyone is surprised, much less feigning surprise, that things are going poorly.
New Orleans' plight is not the result of federal underspending. Uncle Sam has spent some five times more on Katrina relief than any other natural disaster in the past 50 years. Both parties in Congress and the White House opted for the status quo by relying on federal bureaucracies to oversee the rebuilding effort. If Uncle Sam were deliberately trying to waste these funds, it is hard to imagine a better way than to funnel the money through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Small Business Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Both HUD and the SBA have been on the chopping block back to the early Reagan years.
Coastal Mississippi is well on the way to full recovery, thanks in part to the leadership of Governor Haley Barbour. The number of building permits in Mississippi are four times higher than in New Orleans.
Back in October I extrapolated the funding that Grand Forks received after the 1997 flood to the Katrina disaster. By my rough figuring Louisiana and Mississippi needed $88 Billion to equal the support of Grand Forks. According to Opinion Journal $122 Billion. Reportedly the money spent in New Orleans hasn't really helped those that need it most. Are we to believe that if we throw more money at the problem they'll do any better?
Back in my October post I asked this question to our Senator, Kent Conrad:
So my question is Senator, "Did Grand Forks get short changed by your efforts in 1997 or are you going to stop this looting of the treasury."
Louisiana politicians aren't satisfied with the generosity they've seen from the rest of the country. Rather, they are demanding another $250 Billion. It's time for them to go to work, not to wait for more money.
