RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Hurricane Katrina

Quote:

---

magicjay38 said:


I'm still waiting for that 'sting like a bee' part. I thought 'doublespeak' was a term created by Orwell to describe Stalinism. Seems like the lesson of the Bolsheviks was not lost on American conservatives.

This is a true statement:

The Bush Administration cut funding for improvements on the levees to support tax cuts which benefited the wealthiest 5% of Americans. When Katrina struck those levees could not hold back the storm surge. They failed. This was a major contibutor to the destruction that befell the City of New Orleans. Had the recommended improvements been made the disaster may have been greatly reduced.

---

Magicgay.

Quote:

---

"Responsible for building and maintaining the flood walls and embankments that make up local flood control networks, the state's levee boards historically have provided governors with an easy way to reward financial supporters. In New Orleans, there is the added benefit of overseeing a police department and an expansive inventory of real estate that includes an airport, two marinas, a riverboat casino complex, dozens of parcels of commercial property and hundreds of acres of park land along Lake Pontchartrain."

Then there's an Associated Press story from earlier in the year, which announced that the "Orleans Parish levee board is dusting off a thick but long-dormant report on a grandiose public works project: a proposal to build a 4-mile-long island on Lake Pontchartrain with beaches, camping areas and possibly hotels, restaurants and an amusement park.

"Just imagine a 4-mile stretch of sandy beaches that doesn't directly impact traffic, curtails pollutants in the lake and maybe provides tourist attractions like hotels and museums," Eugene Green, a levee board commissioner, told AP. "That's something that needs to be explored seriously."

. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9232666/site/newsweek/page/2/

---

Quote:

---

In December 1995, the Orleans Levee Board actually boasted to the New Orleans Times-Picayune about all the federal money it had to protect the city from hurricanes. As a result, the board said, the "most ambitious flood-fighting plan in generations was drafted," one that would plug the "few manageable gaps" in the levee system.

The problem was at the local level. The ambitious plan fell apart when the state suspended the Levee Board's ability to refinance old bonds and issue new ones. As the Times-Picayune reported, Legislative Auditor Dan Kyle "repeatedly faulted the Levee Board for the way it awards contracts, spends money and ignores no-bid contract laws." Blocked by the state from raising local money, the federal matching funds went unspent.

By 1998, Louisiana's state government had a $2 billion construction budget, but less than one-tenth of one percent, or $1.98 million, was dedicated to New Orleans levee improvements. By contrast, $22 million was spent that year to renovate a home for the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Where did all the money go? Again, the Times-Picayune says much of the money went not to flood control, but to lawmakers' pet projects, from a $750 million for a new canal lock to a $2.5 million Mardi Gras fountain project that ran $600,000 over budget.

Nine months before Katrina, three top Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness officials were indicted by a federal grand jury in Shreveport and charged, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Louisiana, "with offenses related to the obstruction of an audit of the use of federal funds for flood mitigation opportunities throughout Louisiana."

http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20&artnum=1

---