Blogger did the maintenence thing just as I noticed Oyster's latest. My own reaction to the latest Shrubian mix and match of lies and nonsense was, "no, idiot, there IS a plan--it's called the Baker Bill," which, it turns out, was pretty much what Governor Blanco thought too:
President Bush's assertion Thursday that Louisiana has yet to develop a specific strategy for spending federal hurricane aid drew an angry rebuke from Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who said the White House rejected the key element of the Louisiana plan...
Blanco noted, the Bush administration this week rejected a federal home buyout proposal from U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, that Louisiana officials consider crucial for recovery from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Blanco said Baker's measure would help homeowners avoid mortgage defaults and blighted, sparsely resettled neighborhoods.
"Administration officials do not understand the suffering of the people of Louisiana. If they did, the president could not reject a bipartisan plan that enjoys widespread support in Louisiana and in Congress," the governor said in a statement.
Baker's plan was the lynchpin to many of the housing assistance plans being developed by the state and New Orleans. It was backed by a litany of officials and leaders including Blanco, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and the state's Republican-dominated congressional delegation.
But, this administration--which gave pharmaceutical companies the $800 BILLION dollar gift called the Medicare Drug Plan (boondoggle), and which thinks hemmorhaging lives and money in Iraq is just dandy, suddenly thinks a bold initiative at a time of genuine crisis (and for the record, something that almost makes me forgive Baker's brain-lock moment when he praised the storm for obliterating public housing in NOLA)...anyway, Team Bush decides this doesn't jibe with their supposed "limited government" philosophy--probably because it doesn't limit the government to the fat cats and K Street skunks:
White House officials say Baker's legislation would create another level of bureaucracy and would put the federal government in the undesirable position of being in the real estate business.
The Bush administration is pushing for Louisiana to use its $6.2 billion in flexible federal block grant recovery aid for a grant program for homeowners who lived outside the recognized flood plain and didn't have flood insurance.
Blanco, Baker and other Louisiana officials say that would help 20,000 homeowners — and leave out 180,000 homeowners who believed they were protected by the New Orleans area levee system, including many poor people who don't have the means to rebuild. They are continuing to push for Baker's bill and hope to get the legislation passed without the president's backing...
Bush said Congress has made a "significant commitment" to the Gulf Coast by setting aside $85 billion for hurricane recovery.
"We'll continue to work with the folks down there. But I want to remind the people in that part of the world, $85 billion is a lot," Bush said.
$85 Billion dollars is roughly a third of what's ALREADY been spent in Iraq--with more in the pipeline. I wish someone would ask Bush what he thinks is more important: them...or us.
Oh--and I'll bet that, when they DO consider the region, they've got a plan of their own--along the lines of this:
The city of New Orleans could lose up to 80 percent of its black population if people displaced by Hurricane Katrina are not able to return to their damaged neighborhoods, according to an analysis released Thursday by a Brown University sociologist.
Blacks and the poor were disproportionately affected by Katrina, according to the study led by Brown Professor John R. Logan. The analysis concludes that the difficulty in moving back to the city could mean a massive loss of population, overwhelmingly among blacks.
Don't think for a second that politics takes a back seat to ANYTHING in the Shrub administration. An ethnically clensed NOLA would suit them fine.
Fuckers.
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