Title really says it all. In Bush’s speech he says he is ramping up the government for the (to paraphrase) ‘largest rebuilding project the world has ever seen’. His speech was full of huge plans and grand efforts…but whats this going to cost us? While watching the speech all I kept seeing were dollar signs.
I guess for debate feel free to talk about the speech and give your view of both what he said and what it means. Also, I’d like to get a feel for what folks figure this is going to cost us as a nation. I suppose another debate point would be…should we do all this or not? Should we rebuild the cities, grant economic zones in the area, build the levee structure up (again to paraphrase Bush) 'to be the highest level its ever been. I suppose you could also debate whether the level of aid the president is talking for individuals (everything from property compensation, living money, subsidized jobs if I understood correctly, to a $5000 grant per person for retraining) is wise.
My guess is billions will be spent, and virtually all of it will end up with Bush’s cronies. Meanwhile, the hurricane damaged area will be left to rot, along with the refugees.
What do you base this on? You seriously think this country will spend billions ($60 billion already has been allocated) with zero result except ‘Bush’s cronies’ getting rich? Is Bush the king now…or god?
Meanwhile, let’s cut taxes some more and increase spending in all other areas! Conservatives might even get slightly perturbed! But it’s all in good fun!
Bush and his cronies are so out of touch, and so unconcerned with anything but their political image, that they’ll probably put Karl Rove in charge of the reconstruction effort. Ha ha, wouldn’t that be a hoot? What a wacky idea! Oh, we liberals and our crazy conspiracy theories.
Just for info, the Emails are currently being routed among us gubmint workers, asking for volunteers to go to N.O.
I seriously thought about it, but have to admit I have a serious concern for my own personal health and safety.
As far as the speech goes, my main thought was that it would’ve been a really good speech, 2 weeks ago. Today it kind of gives the impression that Bush was ready to leap into action with all these innovative prgms as soon as he got around to it. This is especially true when contrasted by his response to 9/11, where he acted much faster.
As for the actual policies for reconstruction, we’ll see what actually develops. These things have a tendency to attract all sort of promises of dynamic straight forward action until the spotlight moves on, and then become boondogles.
The price tag I’ve heard was $120 billion dollars to $200 billion. That’s a lot of money. But you know, early estimates after disaster always tend to be horribly pessimistic. The Exxon Valdez spill was cleaned up way, way ahead of initial estimates. The fires in Kuwait were put out way, way, earlier than anyone thought possible at first. And now it’s looking like the estimates of tens of thousands of dead in New Orleans were excessive, and that initial talk of the city not being inhabitable for nine months looks like crazy talk now. Now they’re saying entire neighborhoods will be back up and going almost immediately.
So that $200 billion may turn out to be not necessary. But does that mean it won’t get spent? I think there’s a real minefield in front of Bush now. You think the infighting in the government has been bad already? Wait until every special interest and every congressman in the south starts going after that money. We’ve already seen the start of it with those $2000 cheques. What was meant to be a fast, streamlined way of getting some resources into the hands of peopel who needed it the fastest and most turned into a complete fiasco because suddenly everyone who left New Orleans was saying, “How come I don’t get mine?” Or people in Mississippi who’s houses were totally destroyed are upset because other people who lost their houses are getting money, and they aren’t.
Imagine the fighting that might go on as money has to be allocated on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. The advocates for the poor will be attacking the rich, because it costs more to rebuild a mansion than a shack. So thsi is going to turn not into just a rebuilding, but the mother of all urban renewal programs.
And those often turn out badly and become complete money pits.
Given that the man in charge of the operation is a man who’s every single job so far has been political messaging and crony politics, I don’t have much faith that the administration is ready to actually start caring about good policy over politics. Like everything else this administration has done, this will be run as a political campaign: political considerations taking primacy over everything else. Iraq was the last place they decided to use this strategy.
Put it another way: does the fact that Karl Rove is in charge of this operation give anyone, no matter how much of an apologist, the sense that the administration is planning to make it a priority to hire urban planners, experienced professionals, academics, and people who actually care about policy matters on this huge scale? Or will the priority be to find great deals for political pals.
Part of the reason is simple CYA. If you estimate a task will take 3 weeks and $50K, and it only takes 2 weeks and $25K, you are “golden” because you came in ahead of schedule and under budget. However if you understimate you are in deep shit. You’ve gone overdue and overbudget, and people were depending on you doing what you claimed you could. It’s just safer to be pessimistic.
I’m just hoping that they take some time to think about what they’re rebuilding, and put back the river silt flow into the marshes, raise a few neighbourhoods onto islans of reasonable height, etc, instead of just rebuilding everythingas it was in situ.
Not to make light of a horrible disaster, and seeing as i’m a New Englander there’s no way i’m talking from experience here, but the whole idea of “rebuild N.O. as it is” sort of reminds me of the “Swamp Castle” sequence from Monty Python and the Holy Grail…
"Other kings said it’d be daft to build a castle in the swamp, but i built it all the same, just to show 'em…
…it sank into the swamp
so i built a second one, that sank into the swamp
so i built a third one, that burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp
but the fourth one stayed UP
and that’s what you’re goona’ get, lad, the strongest castle in these isles…
Yeah, but estimates of building things tend to be overy optimisitic. I suspect the price tag will be higher than anyone anticipates now.
And, as I said in the other thread, it’ll probably take 20+ years to get the levees to where they need to be. What happens when we spend $200B and then in 5 years we have another Cat 5 storm and the whole thing floods again?
I guess that this is just the only politically viable option.
At least a gazillion. As a Bostonian I’m here to tell you it cost us $15 billion just to sort out a stretch of highway in our city. It was supposed to be $2.2 billion and was supposed to be finished 10 years ago. And the damn thing’s still not finished, and there’s still more costs coming since the contractors - including Bechtel, who has won no-bid contracts for NO reconstruction and is currently under investigation in Boston for massive cost overruns and fraud - made a gajillion mistakes, did not compensate the taxpayers and the damn thing is still leaking all over the place. (My personal favorite current Big Dig joke is they’re going to be replacing the state troopers with Swift Boat patrols).
So anybody expects to rebuild an entire city for only 13 Big Digs? Dreaming. You’ve got levees, bridges, streets, hundreds of thousands of houses destroyed, I don’t know how many buildings destroyed … *all that infrastructure * - the clean-up of what has survived. That’s just off the top of my head. Think of the thousands of little things that haven’t been thought of that will need rebuilding. I know a lot of the houses and buildings were insured, but a large portion of them weren’t for flood or weren’t fully insured. Guess who gets hit up for the balance? And you don’t think the government will be spending billions just on the refineries and the port up and running? Shudder.
I’m sorry, but Hastert was right. It’s insane to rebuild the whole thing when there’s every reason to believe that it’ll happen again. I mean even if they managed to protect the levees against a cat 5 hurricane - for however many billions of dollars that alone will cost - what’s to protect them from a terrorist attack?
Not that much, really. He’ll just talk about it a lot over the next few months to try to polish up his image, and then he’ll stop talking about it the next time he finds something shiny to wave in front of the public. Then he won’t have to actually fund it.
Yeah, I caught that in the speech too. I suppose it is necessary…