Running Government Like A Business
Sep 1st, 2005 at 5:28 am by Susie
That is, if you’re stealing money from the company coffers and using it to pay for crack and your girlfriend’s new condo… In excruciating (and infuriating) detail, Will spells out BushCo’s criminal negligence in New Orleans.
Here’s just a sample, but sadly, there’s plenty more:
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:
The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.
The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president’s 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.
“The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink,” he said. “I’ve got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we’re going to have to pay them interest.”
By the way (and it made me even more furious to find out), did you know BushCo systematically downgraded and de-funded FEMA? Turns out they were placing it under the Department of Homeland Security - but they never quite got around to putting anything in place.
They’re only preparing for “terrorist acts.”
And in the meantime, New Orleans is now officially a Third World country.
Governor: More deaths likely
? Katrina blamed for 68 deaths, including 55 in Mississippi? Reports of bodies floating in water in
I’m beginning to think of Dubya as if he were a character in the old Li’l Abner comic strip. Cartoonist Al Capp came up with such people as Marryin’ Sam and Stupefyin’ Jones. I think Dubya’s moniker should be Catastrophe Bush, because everything he does — or doesn’t do — turns out wrong.