Republicans like to brag that, as a
political party, they are more fiscally responsible than their Democratic
counterparts. Well, thanks to President Bush's nearly five years in office that
theory can now take up residence in the urban legend department.
If
anything, Bush's tenure as president proves that the Republican tax cuts (which
everyone knows truly benefits the wealthiest one percent), drastically slashing
funds in the federal budget for much needed improvements to the country's aging
infrastructure (a perfect example being the outdated power grid), and trying to
get away with launching wars on the cheap, have cost taxpayers and their unborn
grandchildren more money than anyone could have ever imagined.
Simply
put, since he became president, Bush has not invested the funds to fix the
cracks in the country's infrastructure, despite repeated warnings from experts
and intense lobbying efforts by state officials that ignoring the problem will
make it worse in the long run. Instead, the president pumped tens of billions
of dollars into an unnecessary war that, when it became evident that attaining
victory was tougher than the war planners imagined, required tens of billions
of dollars more just to continue the fighting.
Only
when devastation and catastrophe struck the nation did the federal government cough
up the funds, but by then there wasn't much of choice and as such a $1 billion
restoration project before a devastating hurricane touched down on the Gulf
Coast has turned into a $200 billion reconstruction effort and has now saddled
taxpayers with economic woes that no tax cut can relieve.
You
don't have to look further than New Orleans, a city wiped out by Hurricane
Katrina, as evidence of the Bush administration's and Congress' fiscal
irresponsibility. It's a direct result of Washington's financial incompetence
that the cost for rebuilding The Big Easy alone is estimated to top $200
billion.
Flooding is the most destructive
and costly natural disaster in the United States, accounting for approximately
75 percent of all disasters declared by presidents annually. Approximately 160
million acres, or 7 percent of the United States, are estimated to be
floodplains and urban expansion into floodplains continues at an increasing
rate, according to the Public
Entity Risk Institute, a nonprofit think tank that that aims to educate the
public and government on disaster management.
Sadly, no one was becoming any
smarter. Instead of funding flood control projects, the Bush administration cut
the Army Corps of Engineers budget, forcing the city of New Orleans to loan the
agency $1 million back in December of 2003 to keep one crucial flood control
project from shutting down entirely.
“It's not every day that New
Orleans has to bail out the federal government,” said the Times-Picayune in a
January 2, 2004, story. “But that's exactly what happened last month, when the
Orleans Levee Board voted to advance the Army Corps of Engineers $1 million to
prevent a vital flood control project from shutting down.”
Al Naomi, a senior project
manager for the corps told the Picayune that federal funding has all but dried
up, threatening to put hurricane protection plans that were already underway on
hold indefinitely.
Naomi said the corps has been
strained for money, as the federal government's priorities have shifted to
other concerns, such as homeland security, which prior to Hurricane Katrina
meant protection from terrorist threats, and the war in Iraq.
Before
Bush delivered his better-late-than-never speech to the nation earlier this
month in front of Andrew Jackson's statue in New Orleans,
he personally shot down repeated requests for federal assistance made by
Louisiana officials over the past four years to help repair New Orleans'
eroding coastline, the most recent of which was turned down by the president in
June. Even prior hurricanes, such as Ivan, which just missed New Orleans last
September still wreaked havoc on the city, forcing local officials to evacuate
the city and calling on the federal government for help, were not enough to
sway President Bush to focus on domestic threats instead of pouring all of his
energy into terrorism and the war in Iraq.
So, to
hear the president in a televised speech promise to spend whatever it takes to rebuild
one of the nation's great cities is not a sign of progress, rather it's a
symbol of the total breakdown of his administration and an attempt to conceal
what could arguably have been a man-made disaster because of Bush's policies.
The
final blow, however, came in June. Louisiana state officials had been hoping
that a provision included in the Senate energy bill that called for $500
million in offshore energy revenue from the federal government would finally
provide Louisiana and four other coastal states with the funds it desperately
needed to repair its damaged wetlands to protect itself, among other things,
against possible future weather-related disasters.
But
the White House adamantly refused to part ways with the $5 billion it gets from
drilling in the Gulf Coast, its second biggest source of revenue (after income
the Internal Revenue Service brings in) choosing to use most of those funds to
finance the Iraq war.
To
ensure that the message came across crystal clear, Bush personally ordered White
House aides to take the unusual step of sending a letter to House and
Senate negotiators advising them to kill the revenue-sharing plan in the final
version of the energy bill.
The White House's Office of
Management and Budget released a policy statement paper in June that said the
Bush administration opposes “the significant new funding authorizations and
diversion” of Outer Continental Shelf revenue included in a national energy
bill being discussed in Congress.
"Currently the federal
government does share royalties with coastal states -- more than $3 trillion to
date, in fact. Changing this amount only increases the budget deficit and
diminishes the benefit the rest of the nation receives from these national
resources," Scott Milburn, press secretary for the White House's Office of
Management and Budget, told The Associated Press in June.
“Disheartening,” “frustrating,”
“upsetting” and “just another nail in my coffin” is how Louisiana senators,
community leaders and coastal advocates responded to the news in June that the
White House intervened and advised the Senate to defeat the revenue provision,
according to a June 16 report in the Houma, La., Courier.
Ironically the erosion to the
state's coastline -- which became considerably worse over the past five years
-- is due, in part, to oil and gas drilling in the Gulf, much of which takes
place off the Louisiana coast.. Although the state is responsible for repairing
its coastline to support its oil and gas infrastructure it barely benefits
financially from the drilling that takes place right in its own backyard.
“While inland states enjoy 50
percent of the tax revenue from drilling on their federal lands, Louisiana gets
back a mere $35 million of the $5 billion it contributes to the federal
treasury each year from offshore drilling, or less than one percent,” the
Courier said.
In a written statement, U.S.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., condemned the White House position. Landrieu said
the Bush administration simply can't comprehend why the state of Louisiana
needs compensation for producing a bulk of the nation's energy supply. It's a
fact that coastal oil-and-gas-producing states account for 25 percent of the
nation's natural gas and 30 percent of oil.
“The president's statement
indicates a failure to appreciate the burdens borne by the people of Louisiana
and other coastal oil-and-gas-producing states,” Landrieu said.
It wasn't long after the White
House issued its statement on the revenue sharing concept that Louisiana
lawmakers predicted an apocalyptic end to the city of New Orleans.
Clifford Smith, a Houma, La.,
civil engineer and coastal advocate who is also a member of the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers' Mississippi River Commission, told The Courier in June that
without federal assistance New Orleans could very well drown if it took a
direct hit from a hurricane.
"We're not going to get the
kind of recognition and concern we deserve until we have a disaster," he said.
© 2005 Jason Leopold
Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive
memoir, "News Junkie," to be released in the spring of 2006 by
Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.