Bush Will Spend $200 Billion to Clean up after Katrina

Last night, George “Nero” Bush tried to convince the American people that he was getting on top of the mess Hurricane Katrina made of the Deep South. His 20 minute speech from Jackson Square in New Orleans was not his finest performance, but it may have stopped the hemorrhage of popularity from his administration. However, there is a political cost to this – he may have lost part of his conservative base with a Rooseveltian scheme of massive government spending.

The plan itself is grandiose by necessity. At the end of the day, the American people want their government to fix the mess. There may be ideological quibbles over the role of government and its relationship to the private sector, but the simple fact is that without government action, the Gulf Coast will revert to swamp and wilderness. There is no other entity big enough or wealthy enough -- $200 billion is roughly equal to the total assets of ExxonMobil. Mr. Clinton announced that the era of Big Government was over; Mr. Bush has said it never really went away.

But there were voices on the right that howled at the idea of the federal government spending that kind of money. Former Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough and Tucker Carlson, both self-avowed rightists and fans of the president, immediately began complaining on MSNBC about the price tag and the federal actions surrounding it. Mr. Carlson said, roughly, that the president was asking a great many of his supporters swallow a great deal of unpleasant medicine. Fiscal responsibility is vital, naturally, and any economist will point out that $200 billion would require substantial tax increases to fund properly – or huge new levels of debt. One expects to hear more from the likes of Messrs. Scarborough and Carlson before anything more is done.

However, the other part of the Republican coalition, the corporate welfare crowd, loved the speech. The odious Haley Barbour, governor of Mississippi and stereotypical oleaginous good ol' boy from Dixie, positively drooled over the proposed Gulf Opportunity Zone – the same principle that has enriched the coast of China at the expense of the interior. The general idea is to suspend the rules by which the rest of the economy plays to allow carpetbaggers and scalawags to plunder the South (as during the post-Civil War period) and rebuilding parts of it as a side effect. As experience in China and elsewhere has proved, this growth will come at the expense of the area just beyond the special economic zone. It will hurt Arkansas, East Texas, Georgia and the northern parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. It won't really increase economic activity so much as concentrate it in a certain place that makes things look more impressive.

Still, on the face of it, Mr. Bush’s plan isn’t too bad. A big job lies ahead, and he has outlined an ambitious plan with something for everyone (even the poor are going to get some money to learn a trade). But like everything else, execution is the key, and this administration isn’t very good at execution. Mr. Bush said, “we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes,” to fix the Gulf region. Unfortunately, that is also his policy for Baghdad, where billions have been spent and where one still can’t safely drive from the airport to the center of town.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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