Levee problems were not suddenly discovered during the Bush administration. They have been a constant concern for the citizens of New Orleans for well over a hundred years… as has been the corruption of New Orleans and Louisiana officials that have failed to secure matching funds, misappropriated the funds they were allocated, and were so poor in money management that they lost the ability to restructure their debt.
In addition, the state of Louisiana thought so little of levee improvements that they spent less than one tenth of one percent of their 1998 budget -- $1.98 million -- to levee improvements in the New Orleans area. In 2001, the Orleans levee board was forced to defer capital improvement project because the locals rejected a tax increase to fix the levees. The levee board did manage, however, as noted above, to spend $2.5 million on one restoration project—of a water fountain. That, too, was well over budget.
In short, New Orleans and Louisiana bear almost all the blame for not funding their levee system They couldn’t even meet the federal government halfway. Why should someone in Boise or Boston be forced to pay for a Louisiana-benefiting project that won’t even sell in Baton Rouge?
It is also worth noting that under the present administration, Louisiana has received more money for Corps of Engineers construction projects ($1.9 billion) than any of the other 49 states. California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times larger.
Seriously, why should the President or congress have allocated more money to La if they were going to spend it on fountains instead of levees?
