LATimes: Bush's Hurricane Response a Disaster

[rumpel]

Michael Hiltzik

Nearly five years ago, the Bush administration rode into office bearing its cynicism about government high, like a banner.

It promoted a massive tax cut as a way of "starving the beast" of federal government. President Bush traveled the country telling us that we were overdependent on the government for help with healthcare and retirement. To those wondering what resources might see them into old age, he advised: "a conservative mix of stocks and bonds."

New Orleans is, or should be, the graveyard of the conservative ideology that government is useless. An American city is reduced to Third World desperation as people who own nothing scrounge for necessities in a sea of waste and federal officials offer lame excuses about how their disaster plans would have worked fine had there not been, you know, a disaster. The president, at the head of a global power that can't get its own troops or supplies off their bases to reach the needful, whines, "The private sector needs to do its part."

This deplorable performance has deep roots. Joe M. Allbaugh, a Bush campaign hack without any crisis management experience who was named director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, disparaged federal disaster assistance as "an oversized entitlement program" before Congress in 2001. The public's expectations of government in a disaster situation, he said, "may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level." He advised stricken communities to rely for help on "faith-based organizations … like the Salvation Army and the Mennonite Disaster Service."

If Allbaugh were not an amateur, he would have known that communities, "faith-based organizations" and the private sector become overwhelmed by disasters more modest than this one. In a crisis the federal government should be the first responder, not the last, to take charge, not wait to be asked.

more:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden5sep05,1,6942190.column?coll=la-headlines-business

[Greybnk48]

1. I plan to use this line

After putting morans in charge and gutting FEMA "disaster plans would have worked fine had there not been, you know, a disaster."

[mnhtnbb]

2. Allbaugh is now a lobbyist for KBR

And Halliburton has its first contract from the US Navy for
rebuilding in the Katrina disaster.

Gee, what a surprise. These a$$holes view disaster only as an opportunity to make money for the private sector.

http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/4352.php

[cloud75]

3. Jesse Jackson had it right on cnn...saying give contracts to local

New Orlean's residents first...they need to the jobs.