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Can
New Orleans Be Rebuilt? |
Posted:
09.19.05
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In a speech given two weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf
Coast, President Bush took responsibility for the slow government
response and promised to rebuild the devastated region.
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 President
Bush has unveiled a massive rebuilding program for New Orleans
and other parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama that he
called "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world
has ever seen."
Although there are few details, the president's plan includes
incentives for job creation and tax cuts for small businesses,
especially minority-owned enterprises.
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What's the
plan? |
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President Bush and his advisors have outlined three steps to
begin the long process of recovery.
First, agencies across the federal government are providing immediate
aid to the evacuees. While the Department of Health and Human
Services sends medical workers to temporary shelters, the Department
of Labor is helping evacuees find temporary jobs.
Second, the president proposed that the federal government pay
for the rebuilding costs, allowing state and local governments
to save their limited funds.
 Third,
President Bush said he wanted to create programs to bring evacuees
home "for the best of reasons -- because they have a real
chance at a better life in a place they love."
The president proposed an Urban Homesteading Act, a reference
to President Lincoln's 1862 Homestead Act which gave land to families
willing to settle in the American West, provided they stayed for
at least five years.
In President Bush's plan, poor evacuees would be given a plot
of land in exchange for promising to build there.
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Paying for
the recovery |
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All these programs will cost billions of dollars, putting a significant
strain on the federal budget. The latest estimates put the total
at about $200 billion -- as much as the war in Iraq.
The federal deficit was already expected to be over $400 billion.
Even though the government is in debt, it is able to spend money
by selling bonds, many of which are bought by foreign countries.
Nations like China and Japan purchase these bonds, in what is
essentially a loan to the United States, with the assumption that
the U.S. government will pay them back with interest.
Critics of "deficit spending" say it shifts the burden
of paying for government programs to this country's youth because
they will eventually have to pay back the debt to the foreign
investors.
If the money is not borrowed it will have to come from cuts in
government spending that would affect all Americans.
"Bridges, roads, parking structures, bike trails" are
all budget items that should be cut to pay for Katrina recovery,
said Alison Fraser of the Heritage Foundation.
What is funded and where the money comes from will likely be
a critical issue in the House and Senate elections coming up next
year, as well as the presidential election in 2008.
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What kind
of reconstruction? |
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While Congress decides how to pay for reconstruction, officials
are debating how to best rebuild New Orleans and deal with the
poverty and racial divides that the storm revealed.
 "We
have the opportunity, if we have the right principles and we have
the right tools to give many of those low income families the
ability to live in neighborhoods ... where they have access to
good schools, safe streets and quality jobs," said Bruce
Katz, who was chief of staff for the Department of Housing and
Urban Development in the Clinton administration.
"That did not exist in New Orleans before this hurricane.
And to some extent it didn't exist because the federal government
had created enclaves of poverty with public housing and subsidized
economy and so forth," he added.
And even though the broken levees will be fixed and strengthened,
geological experts fear that another strong hurricane could cause
a repeat of the recent floods.
We need a better plan for a huge storm such as Katrina and a
coastal restoration program, said Mark Schleifstein, an environmental
reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
 "Both
of those are very, very expensive propositions that haven't been
addressed at all," he added.
Finally, local officials are also trying to figure out how to
lure people back to the devastated cities.
In a Washington Post/Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation survey
of Katrina evacuees in Houston, 44 percent of respondents said
they would "permanently relocate" to somewhere other
than New Orleans.
--
Compiled by Brian Wolly for NewsHour Extra
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Both performances were incredibly underwhelming, and offered no real reason for Americans to change their votes. Neither candidate seemed willing to go out on a limb to garner support.
