Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach run for office. Those who can’t perform the duties of their office get billions of federal dollars to fuck it up again:

And the federal government will undertake a close partnership with the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, the city of New Orleans, and other Gulf Coast cities, so they can rebuild in a sensible, well-planned way. Federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone, from roads and bridges to schools and water systems. Our goal is to get the work done quickly. And taxpayers expect this work to be done honestly and wisely — so we’ll have a team of inspectors general reviewing all expenditures.

The federal government will be fully engaged in the mission, but Governor Barbour, Governor Blanco, Mayor Nagin, and other state and local leaders will have the primary role in planning for their own future. Clearly, communities will need to move decisively to change zoning laws and building codes, in order to avoid a repeat of what we’ve seen.

Zoning laws and building codes? That was the problem? Of course! If only the buildings had been up to code (watertight? on stilts?), then we wouldn’t have needed the levees – much less that fleet of waterlogged school buses. If only the incompetent municipal bureaucracy of New Orleans had made sure every inner-city home was indestructible and flood-proof, it wouldn’t matter whether the mayor followed the evacuation plan, would it?

I fully trust Blanco and Nagin and Landrieu and Jefferson and the rest to get the job done right, with minimal graft and waste, don’t you? And I fully expect the federal government to do a bang-up job of reconstructing New Orleans. After all, FEMA’s relief operation here in Memphis and elsewhere is a model of efficiency and competence:

“When somebody gets paid 600 bucks to sit and not burn fuel, that’s a pretty good profit margin,” said Alabama Food Services President Buck Hamilton, who is being paid by FEMA for about six truckloads of ice.

His shipments waited at similar truck staging areas in Mississippi. “Would you like to get paid $600 a day to sit and do nothing?” he said. “It’s hard to criticize.”

I have a proposal (this has surely been suggested elsewhere, but I haven’t been reading blogs much lately). How about a two-or-three year moratorium on all federal taxes for every resident of Louisiana and Mississippi? Seriously. I realize a huge amount of cash is needed, but instead of a blank check, how about a big check and a tax cut? Wouldn’t that be a way the federal government could help people get on their feet – a conservative way? Wouldn’t that draw people back to their states, attract new businesses and entrepreneurs, create jobs, and jump-start the Gulf Coast economy?

And besides – the temporarily unemployed IRS agents could be put to work as building inspectors, making sure those stilts are up to code.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 16th, 2005 at 11:44 am and is filed under News & Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.