September 02, 2005

Criminal

hurricane.jpg


Refugees wade through floodwaters to a chartered bus in New Orleans.(AP)


From the WaPo:
In recent years, Bush repeatedly sought to slice the Army Corps of Engineers' funding requests to improve the levees holding back Lake Pontchartrain, which Katrina smashed through, flooding New Orleans. In 2005, Bush asked for $3.9 million, a small fraction of the request the corps made in internal administration deliberations. Under pressure from Congress, Bush ultimately agreed to spend $5.7 million. Since coming to office, Bush has essentially frozen spending on the Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for protecting the coastlines, waterways and other areas susceptible to natural disaster, at around $4.7 billion.

As recently as July, the White House lobbied unsuccessfully against a plan to spend $1 billion over four years to rebuild coastlines and wetlands, which serve as buffers against hurricanes. More than half of that money goes to Louisiana.

Posted by Linkmeister at September 2, 2005 10:55 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Oh come on Links... you can't possibly be trying to blame the circumstance New Orleans is in on Bush, lol. That crow doesn't fly man, sorry.

The wetlands/coastlines south of N.O. have deteriorated because N.O. is built on the delta, therefore; the delta has not been receiving sediment deposits and continuing to maintain the exact land mass you speak of - the one which would have dampened the storm surge. The city has been sinking since the first day.

And in regards to blaming the President on funding - that's absurd as well. President Clinton had 8 years to do whatever it is you now expect out of President Bush (if you really want to get partisan here). Even if Bush had somehow, miraculously ramped up funding for the Army Corps of Engineers and designated that funding specifically to N.O. the levee situation would still not be sufficient today – it would have made no difference with Katrina – give me a break.

I just don't get how you can blame President Bush for everything under the sun here - the President is not all-powerful regardless of his party and while you are pointing fingers about funding and hindsight, you can feel free to point fingers at Kathleen Blanco (who had access to FEMA resources and thousands of National Guard troops DAYS before Katrina hit) or that idiot of a Mayor C Ray Nagin (who has absolutely, positively FAILED his city and his citizens).

Posted by: Josh at September 3, 2005 10:34 AM

And the blame-deflection begins. It wasn't President Bush, it was those awful Democratic local and state officials.

Read the damned article, Josh.

Posted by: Linkmeister at September 3, 2005 10:47 AM

lol I'm not blaming the democrats - that's just my point. I was bringing up democrats to present a counterpoint and demonstrate how silly it is to blame Bush. I just think the hurricane was an awful, awful thing that everyone underestimated short of some meteorologists and engineers.

Posted by: Josh at September 5, 2005 07:31 AM

PS you're kinda mean. I read the article. s'ok though :)

Posted by: Josh at September 5, 2005 07:32 AM