Congress' (and the President's) Priorities: ABNO

That would be "Anything But New Orleans", as reflected in the whopping bill, ostensibly to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and anywhere else we may be planning wars), along with a number of other domestic "priorities". According to the AP, the domestic spending includes:

OTHER SPENDING -- $10.1 billion for various foreign aid programs, including $1.9 billion for international food aid and $465 million for Mexico to combat drug trafficking; $5.8 billion for Louisiana levee repairs and construction; $4.6 billion for military base construction; $400 million for "competitiveness" programs, energy research and medical research; and $210 million to address cost overruns involving the 2010 census.

That damn census overrun. By contrast, Louisiana's Congressional delegation had sought to include in the bill $157 million to help New Orleans hospitals cope with the crisis caused by the flooding of several local hospitals when the federal levees failed. Chief among those flooded hospitals was "Big Charity", the downtown Art Deco building that was the centerpiece of the state's unique commitment to provide medical care for the poor and indigent. Guess where those folks have gone for medical care since the flood? The emergency rooms of the private hospitals for whom that $157 million would provide temporary fiscal relief.

The story is, of course, more complex. Some personnel who worked at Big Charity and have seen it since the flooding say it's repairable, but LSU, which operated it, prefers to build a grand new teaching hospital downtown. The feds also prefer to not rebuild a component of Huey Long's Charity Hospital system, preferring to send the poor and indigent to....well, neighborhood clinics, for one thought. And, a few neighborhood clinics have sprung up in New Orleans, staffed by volunteer doctors, to fill part of the need.

Meantime, those private hospitals whose emergency rooms are providing the bulk of the care for the poor and indigent are on their own

But combating Mexican drug trafficking, a program which is working so well, gets a nice big infusion of funding. Priorities.

UPDATE (FRIDAY): The Times-Picayune reports on another item left out--and those of you denouncing New Orleans for its crime problem please take note:

The $75 million package contained about $17 million for New Orleans to rebuild the crime lab, hire new assistant district attorneys and expand a drug court program.

Comments

[sleepless]

Harry, there is a long list of anything buts. For me, after listening to the entirty of mafia lawyers Yoo and Thou (Addington) my pick is ABT, anything but torture. Silence, except for cspan and pacifica radio.

It is easy to not think about N.O. or Bakram when we get no news anymore. Makes it so easy to steal.

[rextrek]

Well not sure IF you heard yet - but David "diapers" Vitter, and Larry "wide-stance" Craig just sign on to try and Ressurect the "Protect Marriage Ammendment" ......if it wasn't so sad...it would be Funny!

[LisaO]

HI Harry,

We are potentially facing a Katrina-sized (or maybe bigger) disaster in California, and we don't seem to be anybody's priority. If you read this story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/26/unruly-wildfire-threatens_n_109442.html
maybe it doesn't sound so bad, but a forestry fed seems to have broken ranks and said that CalFire (our own wonderful bureaucracy, whose favorite line is "We have no information on that at this time') is lying about the number of active fires in Mendocino County, by not counting the ones on Forest Service land.

I'm near the ocean and there is a thousand acre fire up the hill from me, which has been contained by our local VFD. But now the wind is changing, and we're getting smoke from the fires north of us, where people have already been evacuated, and nobody knows what will happen to our fire (or any other fire), if the wind turns and comes from the east. Never mind if we get more lightening. We'll probably all be toast. Or we'll make it down to the cliffs and, hand in hand, jump into the freezing Pacific, rather than be burned to death.

I watched those skies, when the lightening hit (unheard of here, at this time of year) and they looked literally unearthly. If I believed in Rapture, I'd have been ready. But i believe in climate change, and I'm not remotely ready.

Please help!

[PhantomAviator]

..

Congrats on your Clear Channel ban. I'd have the article FRAMED. It's a badge of honor.

Ghost never gets tired of this trope: Guns, no butter.
.

[Stuart]

The political corruption in Louisiana had little to do with the Charity system. The system served as a wonderful incubator for doctors--some of the readers here may have been treated by a Tulane or LSU doctor with Charity experience in their past.

One such doctor told me that sad but true reality was that Charity could handle gunshot wounds better than any facility within a thousand miles.

The fact remains that the Federal governement doused Charity, the VA, Baptist, Mercy, and several other hospitals with their faulty floodwall design. Listen to them today, up in Missouri: "these are not 'failures'" and "the levees weren't designed to handle this." If not "this", what?

The Federal Government, via the Corps of Engineers. broke New Orleans. It is only right to hold them responsible for putting it back together. Those who don't believe that are best advised stay clear of any bridge, tunnel, dam, or other civil work managed by the Corps, because if the Corps isn't responsible for their work, who is?

[fogbreath]

as to the money for the mexican war on drugs, with more than 400 anti-drug police killed in mexico so far this year, it would seem the best way to put the drug cartels out of business would be to give free drugs to addicts and let police fight real crime instead of using criminal justice solutions to public health problems.
if i remember right, the celebrity help to nola started after it became all too painfully appearent that the feds were not going to clean up the mess they had made.
it seems likely that iowa will be well taken care of as this is an "election year" and it could be a swing state.

[haleywins]

Not much integrity in Washington these days, included in the White House.

"House Republican Leader John Boehner said that the compromise with the White House hinges on eliminating billions "in unrelated wasteful Washington pork" that was added by Senate Democrats.

But THIS IS ABOUT PROMISES, NOT PORK . After Katrina, President Bush pledged to do whatever it takes to restore this community. Levees to protect us from floods are an absolutely vital part of that restoration. But they alone will not ensure our recovery."


http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1214284821231260.xml&coll=1

[blueken]

"Better than before", that's what Bush said. That means no poor people.

[steamboat]

Harry, I need your thoughts on something, of what I heard on radio (here in Chicago). Actually 2 comments:

A guy and the host began discussing the horrible Iowa/midwest floods and of course, Katrina came up.
The guy is mad because Iowa is in as bad a shape as NOLA was. Countless counties under water. Properties and lives ruined. Yet, he wants to know where are all the civil-rights leaders now, where are all the Hollywood folks now, where are the self-proclaimed progressives, where are the celebrities and there setting-up fund-raisers, etc.. Where is everybody? Are Iowans not as important to the PC-crowd as New Orleaners?
Then another person mentioned that the feds , of course, could do more in each tradegy. Mentioned that as of recent stats, $68,800 was spent in fed. funds per person in NOLA. Thats what the fed funding has been estimated at so far. But that is NOT including the countless volunteers and charities. So he asked where has much of the money gone? Because you still have areas that haven't been really touched yet. How much corruption is going on we don't know about. And then the other guy said, "do you really think Iowans will get as much money and help?"

[showme54]

steamboat it sounds like the same unfactual 'gush' that Limpbaugh (paid big bucks to TALK not to actually KNOW what he is talking about ) & his crowd have been regurgitating for the past week not as a means of support for the good people of the midwest floods & the suffering they are facing, not advising listeners how to help but rather to diss those 'katrina people'. Disasters are very different & how can people compare disasters in progress? Though we have not seen hours of images of desperate people clinging to their roofs begging for help or tens of thousands of people stuffed in a sports facilities/convention centers for days after the levee breeches in Iowa in 90 degree heat w/o food water or other basics of life having cameras shoved in their faces. Maybe the fact that there is very little media coverage of the disasters in Midwest/ California is the reason that people are reacting slow to them. Katrina affected/damaged/destroyed 90,000 sq. miles in Louisiana/ Mississippi/Alabama & other states in a matter of a day or two. The fed levee failure in NOLA shut down the city/surrounding communities & major industry/business/shipping/communication & energy lines for weeks/some for months w/cameras rolling. Little was reported on other parts of LA or Mississippi's devastation or when Rita affected/damaged/destroyed 60,000 sq miles in Louisiana/Texas & other states 3 weeks later & impeded Katrina recovery.

[showme54]

steamboat to your 2nd pt. The $60+K figure is possibly the average Road Home GRANT amount being paid to the 100,000 homeowners that had applied that was recently reported. People that did not own homes are excluded from any of those & most funds. Also, most funding referred as KATRINA MONEY, from what I read, is actually '2005 Hurricane Funds' and goes to ALL states LA-TX-MS-AL-FL, et al (not just NOLA) affected by Katrina, Rita, Wilma and the fed levee failure in NOLA. Out of the initial monies all rescue efforts-expenditures-relief-transportation-housing-debris removal-govt contracts were taken from each state's share 'off the top'. Meaning a lot of money was spent before any local or state official's hand touched it. Money that is appropriated does not necessarilly mean it is 'in hand' and many funds are restricted to specific areas of rebuilding/recovery process. As far as the 'corruption'by officials, I doubt that there are very many that are that stupid because I believe that Louisiana has pretty much been under the microscope and under the gun since Day 1.

[Bienville]

It's pretty hard to nail down a number for Federal expenditures on anything. Things that span multiple years' budgets and special appropriations much more so. "Committed" funds versus actual funds also muddies the water. I personally never believe any figure I hear on the radio. Radio hosts rarely have what you'd call "strong computational skills."

[ed238yth]

I lived in Iowa for 40 years and now in NOLA and in my opinion, the harsh reality is that Iowans are more able to help themselves than are the people in NOLA. The social and governmental institutions at the state and local level are in much better shape and able to handle problems. New Orleans is dysfunctional and corrupt at all levels, and povery is a much bigger problem. In much the same way as poor and dysfunctional people are the most vulnerable to personal crises, poor and dysfunctional cities are more vulnerable to crises. There is also much more racial and class tension in New Orleans than in Iowa, which tends to inflame everything. New Orleans was also under water and nearly abandoned for months, unlike Iowa.

[steamboat]

WELL SAID ! I'll agree with that. But the folks there keep voting to put those corrupt folks back in charge.

Good luck to the Hawkeyes this year (and Tigers).

[Casanavelaw]

I'm not Harry but if you subtract the no-bid contracts, the undelivered goods & services, the toxic trailers and the fraudulent claims (I know of an out of state landlord who applied for FEMA aid, both fraudulently getting money and depriving his Louisiana tenants of aid for their family)

[steamboat]

Why do you think the Jesse Jacksons were down there?.........They demanded grants ($$$) inorder to supposily create programs to help the folks there. Yeah, right !

[ed238yth]

FEMA just cancelled funding for two projects at Tulane University, which they had previously approved: flood mitigation for the university power plant and flood mitigation for the university library. The library had 8 feet of water in the basement and lost collections and the HVAC in the Katrina flooding. The library has been using a temporary HVAC system, which after nearly three years of use is on its last legs. FEMA had approved a project to relocate the HVAC to the roof, and the University had hired an architect, but a couple of weeks ago FEMA withdrew approval for the project. The library is extremely vulnerable right now to power outages and high winds, which can easily take out the temporary HVAC system.

[haleywins]

Evidence of another Bush promise kept.

[j70460]

We Katrina survivors know Sisyphus very well. (Chuckle: FEMA maintenance contractor phoned me yesterday wanting to know if we still had our trailer. They hauled it off in late Feb, but they don't know that.)