Politicizing The Political
It is hard for me to see how Americans in general and anyone from the Gulf Coast in particular could not be outraged over this president and his failed policies. I cannot help but return to post on this subject because it is so much on my mind at the moment, as it is with everyone in the rest of the country.
Before I proceed, let me first anticipate the most likely objection. Many seem to think that criticizing the federal preparedness and response – of which the president is the head – is politicizing a horrific disaster. The problem with this argument is, if the federal government does not exist to protect and assist its very citizenry in such a disaster (or military strike), then what is it for? I think even the most devout of the disingenuous libertarians would agree that this should be the bare-bones reason for the existence of any government – even one drowned in the bathtub by Grover Norquist.
Sadly for the country and most unfortunately for the good folks of the region, the preparation for and response to this disaster epitomizes this president’s misplaced priorities, cronyism, arrogance and incompetence. Furthermore, it is ironic that Republicans would descry this kind of writing as a politicization of something that shouldn’t be politicized, while it serves as a perfect illustration of this administration’s complete merger of politics with policy.
Put simply, with the Bush administration, everything is already politicized.
FEMA is an example. As Josh Marshall tells us, the president dismissed James Lee Witt, a Clinton appointee, as is his executive right. The problem was that Witt had 25 years of disaster and emergency management experience. The president replaced Witt with Joe Allbaugh, a political operative with no relevant disaster or emergency management experience at all. Allbaugh went on to – surprise! – an Iraq post. He in turn appointed his own successor, Mike Brown, an overwhelmed old college buddy lawyer who we all see on TV now.
None of that mattered anyway, since the administration has been getting rid of FEMA. (The cynic in me will say that, just as social security and Medicare are Democratic programs and, in the Republican ascension to absolute power must therefore be destroyed, so then should FEMA follow, since it’s a Carter legacy program.) FEMA is to be replaced by the Department of Homeland Security, which has largely been MIA until Bush returned from vacation and stood next to the Secretary of Homeland Security at the rostrum.
Not that they have the infrastructure to help anyway. The Homeland Security department that will take over FEMA’s disaster management responsibilities has not even been created – while, mind you, FEMA is being actively “downgraded”.
Of course, even if FEMA had not been underfunded and neglected, the levee problem would have been disastrous anyway. In the aftermath of Katrina, how can we not question federal funding of flood protection programs in New Orleans? This excerpt from the New Orleans Times Picayune story (read the full story here) from June 8, 2004 sure raises a whole lot of questions about the president’s misplaced priorities:Shifting federal budget erodes protection from levees; Because of cuts, hurricane risk grows
For the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped major work on the New Orleans area's east bank hurricane levees, a complex network of concrete walls, metal gates and giant earthen berms that won't be finished for at least another decade.
"I guess people look around and think there's a complete system in place, that we're just out here trying to put icing on the cake," said Mervin Morehiser, who manages the "Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity" levee project for the Army Corps of Engineers. "And we aren't saying that the sky is falling, but people should know that this is a work in progress, and there's more important work yet to do before there is a complete system in place."
In reality, levee building is a long-term undertaking. Section by section, earth is piled into walls as high as 20 feet to protect land on the east bank of the Mississippi River from water that a slow-moving Category 3 hurricane could shove out of Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne. But the levees gradually settle into southeast Louisiana's mucky subsoil, and every few years, the corps comes back, section by section, to pile on more dirt in what insiders call a "lift."
"It has always been part of our long-range plan to raise each section of the levee four or even five times," said Al Naomi, the corps' senior project manager. "After that, we think the levee might have stabilized and not need further raisings."
Time for next lift
It's time now for the next lifts in a number of places that have sunk 2 to 4 feet from their design elevations. These include in Kenner west of the Pontchartrain Center, Metairie between Causeway Boulevard and Clearview Parkway, Norco and St. Rose in St. Charles Parish, the Bayou Sauvage area of eastern New Orleans, and remote marshland areas of eastern St. Bernard Parish.
– snip –Bush budget falls short
The Bush administration's proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only $3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. Congress likely will increase that amount, although last year it bumped up the administration's $3 million proposal only to $5.5 million.
"I needed $11 million this year, and I got $5.5 million," Naomi said. "I need $22.5 million next year to do everything that needs doing, and the first $4.5 million of that will go to pay four contractors who couldn't get paid this year."
Naomi said the corps already owes four contractors more than $2 million for hurricane protection work they've done this year without pay, and he expects the figure to climb to about $4.5 million by Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.
The challenge now, said emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri in Jefferson Parish and Terry Tullier in New Orleans, is for southeast Louisiana somehow to persuade those who control federal spending that protection from major storms and flooding are matters of homeland security.
"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's he price we pay," Maestri said. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
And while New Orleans flood funding was being re-appropriated to Iraq, we’ve had numerous tax cuts for our country’s increasingly more powerful aristocratic class.
