LBJ’s Other Quagmire: Long before Katrina, the welfare state failed New Orleans’s poor.
Wall Street Opinon Journal BRENDAN MINITER Tuesday, September 13, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
“What the American people have seen in this incredible disparity in which those people who had cars and money got out, and those people who were impoverished died.”
The above comment about Hurricane Katrina comes to us from Ted Kennedy, who went on to say that the question for Chief Justice-designate John Roberts is whether he stands for “a fairer, more just nation” or will use “narrow, stingy interpretations of the law to frustrate progress.” But why stop there? Sen. Kennedy is onto something and, indeed, the question isn’t only for Judge Roberts. It’s also one for the national debate now under way in the wake of the most devastating hurricane to hit the U.S. in decades.
That debate has so far largely focused on race and class to explain why tens of thousands of poor people were left behind to fend for themselves in a flooding city. Liberals are now blaming small-government conservatism for cutting “antipoverty” programs. That’s a tune a surprising number of people are starting to hum, from NAACP chairman Julian Bond to New York Times columnist David Brooks, who speculated recently that the storm will probably spark a new progressive movement in America. The lyrics are still being written, but the refrain for this ditty is a familiar one: Small government conservatives did it to us again.
There is, however, another explanation: The welfare state failed the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward and other flooded New Orleans neighborhoods long before the levees gave way. This gets us back to the question Sen. Kennedy wants Judge Roberts to answer about whether to adopt a narrow view that prevents real progress from taking place. And it also explains the role Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco–both Democrats–played in leaving mostly poor, minority citizens in a city that was clearly descending into chaos.
Okay, so the “welfare system” is ineffective. What’s the proposed alternative? Mr. Miniter’s suggestions aren’t really that helpful or specific.
Conservatives keep saying that welfare is only around because greedy politicians want to provide their shiftless layabout voters with freebies in return for another term in office. Okay, well how do we prevent these abuses from occurring? I never hear any real suggestions, just large sweeping generalizations about the “welfare state”. Give me an example of something that should be changed: a new dollar amount, a new percentage, new criteria for who can obtain government benefits, etc.
Privatizing Social Security (which I actually partially support) will not solve the problems of those who make only enough to scrape by or who cannot work.
How a real President does things …
“… I went to Florida a few days after President Bush (Sr.) did to observe the damage from Hurricane Andrew. I had dealt with a lot of natural disasters as governor, including floods, droughts, and tornadoes, but I had never seen anything like this.
I was surprised to hear complaints from both local officials and residents about how the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handling the aftermath of the hurricane. Traditionally, the job of FEMA director was given to a political supporter of the President who wanted some plum position but who had no experience with emergencies. I made a mental note to avoid that mistake if I won. Voters don’t chose a President based on how he’ll handle disasters, but if they’re faced with one themselves, it quickly becomes the most important issue in their lives.”
Bill Clinton, My Life (p. 428).
The Hurricane provides a good example of the penny-wise, pound-foolish Republican policies that are hurting the nation.
Pennies:
– Reduce funding to protect Louisiana’s wetlands which provide flood control protection and serve as a storm surge buffer, to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
– Reduce funding to repair New Orleans antiquated levee system despite predictions of massive flooding, to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
– Cut funding for FEMA, reduce its responsibilities because it’s an example of out of control big government, and dismantle the agency, to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
– Reduce funding for jobs training programs and educational assistance that allow people to escape poverty, and impovershed areas, to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
Pounds:
Spend $200 billion “on an unprecedented federal commitment to rebuild New Orleans and other areas obliterated by Hurricane Katrina, putting the United States on pace to spend more in the next year on the storm’s aftermath than it has over three years on the Iraq war.”
…The president will call on Washington to resist spending money unwisely, but some in his own party are already starting to recoil at a price tag expected to exceed $200 billion — about the cost of the Iraq war and reconstruction efforts. As emergency expenditures soar — with new commitments as high as $2 billion a day — some budget analysts and conservative groups are warning that the Katrina spending has combined with earlier fiscal decisions in ways that will wreak havoc on the government’s finances for years to come.”
“Bush to Request More Aid Funding: Analysts Warn of Spending’s Impact”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/14/AR2005091402654.html
Dean, if you are going to be a Democrat, be a Kennedy (John not Ted), not a McGovern Democrat.