disaster
(noun) 1 : a sudden calamitous event bringing great damage, loss, or destruction; broadly : a sudden or great misfortune or failure; 2 obsolete : an unfavorable aspect of a planet or star

To that add natural.

I wonder if all the people that want to place blame have taken the time to think about the total area that was destroyed. The amount of people that have been affected. All the cities and towns. Use Google Earth to fly the whole area. Do you really think that anyone has the resources or manpower to fix it overnight? Do you really think a few thousand more N. Guards were going to make the difference? I guess it's just easier to stomp your feet and yell I want it now,now,now. Instead you should look at how much has been done in a week. I think it's incredible.

In this disaster a week is like overnight.

Even if the response hasn't been perfect, it's hard to claim that *nothing* is being done. Regardless of who's in charge, let's let them do their jobs... it's all we can do now.

My finger-pointing wasn't at the damage-control efforts now, but towards the bozos who thought they could make steep cuts to the corps of engineers to pay for our budgetary deficiencies in the "War on Terror". My post wasn't intended as a Bush-bash, though I do blame his uncontrolled expenditures for the cuts to begin with. The government wastes a lot of money on utter crap (yes including the Big Dig, but also $10 billion on highway expansion in Utah to encourage exurban sprawl - and don't even get me started on federal handouts to the energy industries). There are few areas in which I approve of federal spending. Securing New Orleans is one of them.

If we actually want to talk about Bush-bashing... here goes. When Republicans in Congress in the 90's called for fiscal responsibility, I applauded them (and was not a big Clinton fan, either). I was actually hopeful when Bush took office in 2000. But these past 5 years have been filled with a few disasters, some tough talk, mostly bad leadership, and plenty of excuses. Just because I prefer the pseudo-libertarian ideology of the Republican party to the largely-dead socialist mentality of the Democrats, doesn't mean I approve of how the Republican majority has abused power and weakened our nation.

Through all this the one thing I haven't heard mentioned is the thought of another storm hitting the area. Hurricane season is not over, here's hoping that doesn't happen.

No kidding. It's hard to imagine it getting much worse on the south gulf coast, but if a major hurricane trashed Florida and we had 2 disaster areas at the same time, that would really hurt.

But there's a big difference between cities above sea level and cities below sea level with inadequate levees.

Here's a check-in on reality. The Gulf coast Hurricane Season is just beginning. Prime time is mid Sep thru mid Oct. It's far from over. Have y'all seen the huge wave coming off the Africa coast now? It's at a favorable latitude for development.

Bob

I can't imagine another hurricane in N.O., I don't think they could handle a light drizzle for quite some time .

Keith, What have you been reading? First page, fourth down.

Also we have Ophelia cooking off the east coast.

utah:

the local LA government did not take advantage of funds available to them for levee maintenance and upgrades.

Mary, they then go to the greek alphabet.. Alpha,Beta,etc..

PIC of wave Bob mentioned.

With all due respect, Keith, I don't think the tax cut was the reason the levies weren't built better. I think that point has been made by other posters better than I could make it. I can only add that every serious economist predicts, and every example tried, shows that tax cuts lead to increased revenues. This has been proven multiple times here in the US as well as overseas in Iceland, Ireland, Estonia (I think; one of the Baltic republics has surged ahead in their economic development by lower taxes, establishing strong rules of law regarding business and getting the government out of business.)

And who would have been responsible for correcting the deficiencies? Would one not start with the mayor and govenor? Our federalist structure should have called for that as the starting point. If these levies were not sufficient for a Cat. 4 or above storm, which seems to be what everyone says, then wouldn't you, as mayor or govenor, be fighting, lobbying, yelling, politicing for the funds to get them built to a safer level? And wouldn't you fight to get the funds at the state and federal level? I'm positive you would done such.

David
H20

That is simply not true. Neither the "every serious economist" bit or the "tax cuts lead to increased revenues" bit. There's the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (paper on "revenue increases") and my personal favorite, The Concord Coalition (essay on fiscal responsibility) It's as absurd as saying that all serious scientists agree that global warming is true. Also, there are about 7 trillion pieces of evidence that have popped up against the supply side theory since it was first tested, so calling it a slam dunk is rather silly.

As for the tax cuts being the source of the only recently raised revenue, I've read there is a split on that. Other events, such as deadlines for certain businesses declaring certain revenues have come due, also adding to the amount. Also, given the timetable for the tax cuts the benefits have taken longer to materialize, which might make some question whether they are directly responsible. Analysts who don't have an agenda to push say more time needs to pass to see what the source is and the effect. Analysts on the left will say no effect frorm tax cuts. I tend to go with the need more analysis approach. The red ink is still substantial, and the deficit predictions do not include the conflict in Iraq. So, will the revenue increase the cuts produce be equal or more than the revenue they removed from the system? I guess we'll see. But the level of pork being added to just about any bill these days doesn't help either. You can still have my tax cut - more because I know it hasn't changed my spending habits (ie no extra benefit to the ecomony from me), and I'd rather have it go to infrastructure needs that this country has. BTW you seemed to blame the Big Dig..

The levees have been under constant upgrade and repair for many years (30?) under the Army Corps of Engineers, until '03-'04 when the budget axe fell on it. So the local and federal authorities were aware and working on it until the money went thin. Without proof otherwise, I wouldn't presume to say that the locals did not continue to be concerned or continue to lobby to get funding and work restored. I'm also not sure what happens when locals try to barge in on Army Corps of Engineers projects, fully funded or not.

Also, not necessarily for this particular repsonse, but in general, timelines indicate that a state of emergency was declared by the governor on Friday, 8/26. States of emergencies were declared by the N.O. mayor and Mississippi governor on Saturday, 8/27. Bush also declared a state of emergency on 8/27.

Mike,
I was thinking more of the general media frenzy at the time, not this thread. But also, now that we're on to page 6, I forgot your page 1 post. What was all this about again? Sorry...

Steveh,
I don't have web sites to send you to and I stand corrected that probably "every serious economist" was an overstatement. I can rely, however, on Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman as pretty reputable sources for the position I stated. I visited the sites you linked to and note that they are a bit from the left persuasion. I can only approach the issue with some basic logic that seems to follow human nature. People seem to continually want to retain as much of the fruits of their labor as possible. We have also seen (probably from the prior motivation) that the more one taxes an activity, the less of that activity you will get. Now historically there is a solid correlation between taxe cuts and increases in tax revenues. This has happened multiple times in our history. We have also seen the reverse where taxes were increased and revenues, if they didn't go down, didn't rise. People will go to great lengths to avoid having their earnings taken away from them.

For example, the lowering of the captial gains taxes created a strong surge in business acquisitions (and therefore business selling). Good for the business owner? You betcha. Good for the economy? You betcha. The business changed hands and was often driven to new levels of productivity and the business owner freed up a large amount of capital that was "frozen" in his business. Like the melting of an large block of ice, the money to flowed into the economy. It seems insulting to say it, but the way some people carry on about someone "cashing out" and getting a windfall from something they built up with their labor and brains, you would think the money gets put in a box and buried, never to do any good. The money gets put to work; it gets spent for goods and services, its gets invested, even if it gets saved, its put to work (by the bank). The money is churned through the economy and that creates more economic activity which in the end enlarges the economy. A growing economy creates more jobs and opportunity.

I've never understood why liberals want so much of their toil taken from them. I've also never understood liberal's great faith in government. Humans seem to follow the dictum that power corrupt and increases in centralizing power tend to increase corruption, but that's another long thread. We all need to give some of our wealth to the government (our "commonwealth"), but it seems to me that the less government is set up to do for me, the more freedom I will have and the increase in personal freedom (along with personal capital) is overall a good thing.

David
H20

I look at my paycheck every two weeks and pray to god a hurricane would wipe out the IRS forever.

Fair tax act PLEASE!#$!#$

We've even had a couple of December storms. It will be interesting to see if this season will be busier than '95 when we had 19 named Atlantic storms, 12 of them huricanes. There was just no relaxing in '95.

Jimbo

This includes proper planning to ensure that the state government can continue to communicate with the outside world in thee immediate aftermath. We have the technology. This is 2005, not 1905! Where were the sattlite phones? Did they really believe that the cell phones would still work?!!



Doh! darn that 'spoils' system!

Jimbo

David,

CBPP is definitely of a liberal bent. Concord Coalition, however, is bi/non-partisan. One of the founders, along with Paul Tsongas, is Warren Rudman, of the DOA Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balance Budget Act. Seeing balanced budgets, a solvent Social Security and distaste for tax cut du jour as 'liberal' I believe is a commentary on how far afield we've gotten in the last 25 years of not-so-conservative fiscal policy. But all this is really another thread for another board and if I had saved any of hundreds I've been involved with, I'd simply answer with "Argument 4a" and be done with it.

Bravo! I have never understood the faith that liberals have that someone else can make a better decision with your money than you can. HUH?