# Bush's Buddies Clean Up After Katrina **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 8, 2005, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684 "2005-09-08T18:37:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/41 "2005-09-11T05:18:46Z")
I will agree that there’s nothing _new_ to see here. The porcine synergy of government and business is a long standing rot, a venereal disease in the body politic. But it didn’t happen last week, nor last month. That said, fuck it. The vision of those corporate Mammonites rubbing their greedly little mitts together is spasms of gleeful greed…yeah, that sucks. Money will be wasted in the endeavor, tons of it, bet on it, count on it, swallow it: puke and get over it. A huge job will require huge resources, the big dogs. Yep, we’re about to get good and screwed, you betcha. But if we have to, we have to. With any luck, they might be just a bit more punctilious, knowing that they ain’t in Baghdad and the next administration might not be as forgiving and warmly compassionate as this one. Time wounds all heels. ---
**Author:** ![danceswithcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/42 "2005-09-11T06:08:16Z")
What is your justification for claiming that we’ll get screwed? Have you ever calculated jobs of this scope, such that you may knowingly allege the taxpayer is being taken advantage of? I haven’t, so I won’t make that allegation. Nobody rubs their hands together with glee any more than the guys at the firehouse high five one another when a tactical box assignment comes in. It’s a job. It has to be done. Only a few companies have the structure to manage a project of great magnitude, and it doesn’t make a fiddler’s dick if they’re Democans or Republocrats, so please shut the fuck up. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/43 "2005-09-11T06:44:07Z")
> [@danceswithcats](#): > > … Only a few companies have the structure to manage a project of great magnitude… Precisely my point. We pretty much have to hire them. Probably would have anyway. A fact that cannot have escaped their attention. You may, if you wish, believe that the boardrooms of America are entirely populated by civic-minded patriots with a deep longing to sacrifice for the greater good. If you do, in fact, believe that I must urge you to see your local Cognitive Dissonance specialist, this is definitely third-stage stuff, full blown CD. \* "Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.\* " - John Maynard Keynes ---
**Author:** ![danceswithcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/44 "2005-09-11T07:25:22Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Precisely my point. We pretty much have to hire them. Probably would have anyway. A fact that cannot have escaped their attention. You may, if you wish, believe that the boardrooms of America are entirely populated by civic-minded patriots with a deep longing to sacrifice for the greater good. > > If you do, in fact, believe that I must urge you to see your local Cognitive Dissonance specialist, this is definitely third-stage stuff, full blown CD. > \* > "Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.\* " > > - John Maynard Keynes Then it’s not an act of cognitive dissonance, or whatever spin term the left has come up with to use for pissing on the right. Democrat or Republican, it would work out as it is, so why are you bitching? Spare me your quotes, they can be applied to the evil perpetrated by either party upon the other. Please just shut up. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/45 "2005-09-11T16:35:34Z")
> [@](#): > > Have you ever calculated jobs of this scope, such that you may knowingly allege the taxpayer is being taken advantage of? I haven’t, so I won’t make that allegation. Well, there is a copious history of millions, if not billions of taxpayer dollars vanishing into thin air in the midst of contracting orgies. It’s no surprise, given that Bush’s former head of FEMA, who had to quit because all the private juicy money was just too tempting, was on the ground lobbying for rebuilding contracts before the CURRENT head of FEMA got the bulk of his people there to deal with the disaster. That’s the sort of revolving door system we have, and it’s hardly surprising that taxpayers get stiffed. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/46 "2005-09-11T19:14:54Z")
The Shaw Group was mentioned above, I guess as proof of nefarious Republican doings. The Shaw group was founded by Jim Bernhard, who is its current chairman and CEO. He is a close confidant of Louisiana Governor Blanco, and worked on her transition. He is also currently chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party. [Link.](http://www.lademo.org/index.php?display=ShowPage&id=329508) Again, how is this proof of Republican corruption, or corruption at all? ---
**Author:** ![danceswithcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2005, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/47 "2005-09-11T23:33:53Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > Well, there is a copious history of millions, if not billions of taxpayer dollars vanishing into thin air in the midst of contracting orgies. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/48 "2005-09-12T03:36:55Z")
> [@robby](#): > > No. That’s just ridiculous. > > There was a WWII-era Naval Air Station in Olathe, later converted to a Reserve Center which was shut down in 1994. Yup. The barracks-type housing is still in place, and looks pretty much indistinguishable from other neighbourhoods, although the houses are rather small and similar in appearance. It’s a nice LMC neighbourhood, very low crime rate when I was around there in the early 90’s, average residential age about 40 or so. I think they held naval classes in rented/shared space from the School for the Deaf, and a large school building of some sort that still stands to the East of the OPL. Sadly, it’s gone a bit downhill suddenly since the mid-1990s. It’s now the sort of place where you don’t make eye contact with the people driving their cars through the place slowly with car stereo thumping, or standing on the street corner with their underwear showing. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/49 "2005-09-12T03:52:49Z")
> [@danceswithcats](#): > > Cite? You must be joking. [U.S. can’t account for nearly $100 million in Iraq](http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/3168043) [$9B Goes Missing In Iraq](http://www.thewgalchannel.com/helenthomas/4228758/detail.html) Along with many, many other cites of missing funds spent on contractors and rebuilding in Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/50 "2005-09-12T04:39:55Z")
> [@danceswithcats](#): > > …Please just shut up. Hell, **dances** , had a dollar for every time someone said that to me, I could have all these restraining orders bronzed. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/51 "2005-09-12T07:31:33Z")
More [Bush-buddy broomsweeping?](http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_09_04.php#006496) > [@](#): > > To assist with the recovery and disposition of the victims of Katrina, FEMA has hired Kenyon Worldwide Disaster Management, a Houston-based company which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), another Houston-based corporation, which bills itself as the “dominant leader in the North American death care industry.” > > SCI is not only closely associated with the president (which is not surprising since the company is based in Houston), they were also at the center of what is probably the best-known scandal during Bush’s six years as governor of Texas: the so-called ‘funeralgate’ case. > > … One Tennessee mortician, Dan Buckner, who was on stand-by as a volunteer as part of the Department of Homeland Security’s DMORT program told a local paper that **morticians from around the country were available to do this work as volunteers.** (DMORT works in conjunction with the National Funeral Directors Association). > > “There’s no telling how many dollars they’ll spend on that contract,” he told the paper. Whatever Kenyon Worldwide is getting on that contract, it’s certainly more than what DMORT would have charged ($0). Your taxpayer dollars needlessly at work… ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/52 "2005-09-12T12:30:35Z")
Not only has the lion’s share of the clean-up and rebuilding contracts gone to Bush’s cronies, he has now issued an [executive order waiving federal wage requirements](http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/): > [@](#): > > President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage. > > In a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused “a national emergency” that permits him to take such action under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in ravaged areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. > > The Davis-Bacon law requires federal contractors to pay workers at least the prevailing wages in the area where the work is conducted. It applies to federally funded construction projects such as highways and bridges. > > Bush’s executive order suspends the requirements of the Davis-Bacon law for designated areas hit by the storm. I wonder how many of those receiving Davis-Bacon wages now regret voting for Bush? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/53 "2005-09-12T12:36:06Z")
If that were the full truth, why has Kenyon held contracts with FEMA since 1997? Perhaps the well-respected James Lee Witt decided that this company’s services, secured in a bid, were useful to his agency. [The company certainly seems to have a long track record with this sort of thing.](http://www.kenyoninternational.com/kenyoninternatio.html) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/54 "2005-09-12T13:30:04Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > Not only has the lion’s share of the clean-up and rebuilding contracts gone to Bush’s cronies, he has now issued an [executive order waiving federal wage requirements](http://money.cnn.com/2005/09/08/news/economy/katrina_wages.reut/) And again, there is some precedent for this. President George H.W. Bush did the same thing during his administration, to help with rebuilding after Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki. There is considerable evidence that the Act disproportionately harms firms that are owned by African-Americans and Hispanics, and also laborers from these minority groups. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/55 "2005-09-12T15:28:21Z")
Too much wiggle room, \*\*Moto[/b[. Are you suggesting that such deep compassion for the well-being of minority laborers is the primary motivation for this action? Or that it is a happy, though largely unintentional, side effect? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/56 "2005-09-12T15:28:31Z")
Too much wiggle room, **Moto**. Are you suggesting that such deep compassion for the well-being of minority laborers is the primary motivation for this action? Or that it is a happy, though largely unintentional, side effect? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/57 "2005-09-12T16:00:49Z")
I’m saying it is a consideration. The scope of the rebuilding is huge, and the Davis-Bacon requirements limit the number of firms that can participate in federal rebuilding. Larger contractors can easily meet these requirements, which in many areas are far above rates for the same job done for a private client. Smaller ones cannot, and far more African-American and Latino owned firms are of this smaller variety. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/58 "2005-09-12T16:35:03Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Smaller ones cannot, and far more African-American and Latino owned firms are of this smaller variety. Call me if any African-American or Latino owned firms get contracts. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/59 "2005-09-12T19:28:48Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > Call me if any African-American or Latino owned firms get contracts. Oh, I’m sure there will be a few token appointments. But the lion’s share of the money won’t go to them. (This stuff makes the Whitewater real estate deals seem like Amateur Hour by comparison…) ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684/60 "2005-09-12T19:58:53Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > Oh, I’m sure there will be a few token appointments. But the lion’s share of the money won’t go to them. > > (This stuff makes the Whitewater real estate deals seem like Amateur Hour by comparison…) You mean the stuff that hasn’t even happened yet? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bushs-buddies-clean-up-after-katrina/320684.md?page=4)