Katrina: 5 years later, a "Teaching Moment"

[rdean]

Katrina has taught us a lesson. 5 years after this disaster, entire portions of New Orleans are still devastated.

Instead of rebuilding the underbelly of our nation, we spent our money creating a right wing theocratic government in Iraq that hates our guts.

Some may say that "America First" is not "Christian" and is "uncharitable". But, for sure, "American never" is wrong. You can't build a strong America without a strong foundation. Spending taxpayer money on foreign wars won't keep us safe. Especially if it's wars we just "make up" imagining threats from people who have never attacked us and we end up creating enemies from the very people we want to "save".

Our war motto should be "hurt us and we will crush you, leave us alone and we will leave you alone".

Now this area that has seen only a blip of recovery has been hit with the BP spill. Whether their crab fishing and other ocean produce is damaged or not, many in America perceives it is. Perception can count for a lot. Manipulating public perception is the bread and butter of political parties. People will believe anything if you can smother conversation.

There are people here who believe John Kerry "gave himself" medals. There are people here who seriously believe "death panels" have been proposed. There are people who believe the world is only a few thousand years old and the sun circles the earth. Once these beliefs are in place, it's nearly impossible to change minds.

There is this perception that corporations bring jobs. That if we don't give them a free hand, they will leave. Well, the jobs are gone now. Recently a 300,000 employee plant has been built in China with American money and another 300,000 employee plant is being built. That's 600,000 jobs at two plants. Think of all the other jobs that flow from those. Millions more. We are building "Communist/Socialist" China and letting New Orleans, and the rest of our country, drown.

There has to be a change in this country. Some say, "Let the market sort it out". What does that mean? With a ruined economy, "There is NO Market".

So, what are policies that we should be looking at. If it's not apparent that what is happening now isn't working, then will will it become apparent? With soup lines? With families living in cars? With free health clinics manned by volunteers? Oh wait, those things are happening now.

----------------------------------

As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds has been wasted — more than 10 percent of the some $50 billion the U.S. has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.

U.S. wasted billions in rebuilding Iraq - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Conflict in Iraq - msnbc.com

An inspector general's report said the U.S.-led administration that ran Iraq until June 2004 is unable to account for the funds (more than 9 billion).

CNN.com - Audit: U.S. lost track of $9 billion in Iraq funds - Jan 30, 2005

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - looks like dey learned dey's lesson well...

Audit says $700M in Katrina aid may have been misspent
April 3, 2013 WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal investigators said Wednesday that as much as $700 million in federal aid intended to help some 24,000 Louisiana families elevate their homes after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 may have been misspent.

A report by the Housing and Urban Development Department's inspector general said some homeowners who got grants of up to $30,000 used the money for something else, and that others didn't provide sufficient documents to state officials to show that the work was done. "The state did not have conclusive evidence" that $698.5 million in disaster recovery aid was used to elevate homes, the auditors wrote. In response, HUD officials said the state is responsible for making sure the money was spent properly. But after seeing similar results in previous audits, department officials helped Congress put tighter reins on the program in distributing aid to victims of last fall's Superstorm Sandy in the Northeast. "In the years since Hurricane Katrina, HUD has already implemented a number of the recommendations made by the inspector general, including additional controls to ensure recovery funds are used appropriately," department spokesman Jason Kravitz said.

He said the Obama administration fought for wording to be included in the Sandy aid measure to require enhanced reviews and internal controls on all money made available by HUD and other agencies for superstorm relief and recovery. President Barack Obama in January signed the $50.5 billion measure, which Congress approved the measure despite opposition from conservatives. They said there should have been more time to debate such a large spending bill and to provide tighter spending controls. "I commend HUD for discovering that millions of dollars that were intended to elevate homes along the Gulf Coast were either pocketed or squandered," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a frequent critic of government spending. "As the federal government prepares to spend nearly $16 billion on recovery efforts related to Sandy this is a mistake taxpayers, and citizens affected by the storm, can't afford to see repeated." The measure was aimed primarily at helping residents and businesses as well as state and local governments rebuild from the storm.

The biggest chunk of money in the Sandy bill was $16 billion for HUD community block grants. Of that, about $12.1 billion will be shared among Sandy victims as well as those from other federally declared disasters in 2011-13. The remaining $3.9 billion was solely for Sandy-related projects. Those grants can pay for rebuilding roads and hospitals, other public works projects, helping small businesses reopen, restoring utilities and providing rental subsidies. The grants are popular with state and local governments because of their flexibility on how the money is spent. Louisiana Office of Community Development Executive Director Pat Forbes said the state is working to get the homeowners to document their compliance with the program. Forbes said that since August 31, 2012_which is when HUD's data was collected_more than 5,000 homeowners have done so. "We are working aggressively with HUD to get the remaining 19,000 homeowners in compliance," Forbes said.

Source

 

[buckeye45_73]

wow rdean with more stupidity....not enough money to bail out a city stupid enough to be near the Gulf of Mexico AND be under the sea level.
Katrina taught us local democrats are just as incompetant as national ones.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Did Obama do much better with Sandy? Katrina was 5 times as damaging...Sandy was a borderline piece of shit as cyclones go.