The First 100 Days in New Orleans
Let's see...Mayor Nagin's embroiled in twin scandals, involving his Sanitation Commissioner turning over private emails from city councilpeople and his former technology czar's ties with companies doing business with the city....the Sugar Bowl...a great Carnival Season...Bobby Jindal turned down some federal stimulus money, but accepted some, while spending most of his time fund-raising for 2012...And, oh yes, there was a new President.
What has Barack Obama meant to the city almost destroyed by federal malfeasance in 2005? The best, and the worst, one can say is that he's lived up to his campaign promises. He promised health-care reform, energy reform, a doubling-down in Afghanistan -- we're getting all that (or at least a fight for all that). He made a vague assertion that he'd make real the promises President Bush uttered that eerie, floodlit night in an otherwise-darkened Jackson Square, and all the administration has offered to New Orleans so far has been a fact-finding trip by Janet Napolitano, who observed that "no levee can be built high enough to withstand a hurricane like Katrina." So, more facts need to be found, at least for the DHS Secretary.
Here's one: there was not one dollar in the stimulus package, not one out of 700-billion-plus, to help the rebuilding of the tattered levee-floodwall system (despite the Corps of Engineers' statement, a few weeks ago, that, supposedly because of money shortfall, they would choose the "technically not superior" solution to the repair of one poorly-built floodwall; not one dollar out of 700-billion-plus to accelerate the restoration of the coastal wetlands that buffer New Orleans from stronger hurricanes, despite the fact that human activity, including Corps of Engineers-built canals and oil company pipelines, have caused most of the destruction of the wetlands. Not shovel ready? The only thing readier for a shovel is the hope that the new administration might really bring the nation's attention to the federal government's responsibility for the disaster, not just for the lackluster response, and might step up to its responsibility to do the job right this time.
All during the campaign, and then during the first 50 days, Obama partisans would say to me, "his heart's in the right place, just give him some time, he's got a full plate." Yet, the Corps is making decisions right now that chill the blood of New Orleanians concerned about their city's future, and Simon Cowell will be on welfare before this Congress will pass another stimulus bill. The money window is shut, and the administration has been content to focus the nation's attention on Latin American relations, on high-speed rail, on Bo -- on anything but the near-destruction of a great American city.
Nice 100 days' work. Happy Jazzfest.
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Harry, you are leaving out one very vital piece of information. It is not up to Obama or his administration to delegate stimulus/recovery funds to New Orleans. It is up to the leadership in Louisiana to make their case for why those funds are needed. I think you are being really unfair to the Obama administration here. New Orleans needs help, no doubt about it, but it is up to their strangely popular governor and the mayor of New Orleans specifically to make the case. It's getting a little tedious the way so many are assuming that Obama is some sort of magical leader who can direct money and power where ever he wants. You know the bureaucracy that is US Government. Merlin himself could not make it move faster or more efficiently. Give me a break!
Yeah, Obama appears to be a sort of go-along-get-along politician. No real inspiring leadership, but lots of soaring rhetoric. Here's hoping that things get better and soon.
Sorry, don't agree at all. Obama has shown lots of leadership in these short 100 days. It took us a long time to get into this mess, it will take a while to get out of it.
See Jeffrey Buchanan's Profile
While we didn't see major action in the first 100 days, a bipartisan group in the U.S. House will soon be introducing a new approach to recovery, the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act of 2009 to create 100,000 green jobs and training opportunities rebuilding more resilient community infrastructure, restoring natural flood protection and promoting energy efficiency. With enough national grassroots support we can help bring justice to New Orleans and Gulf Coast communities in their recovery.
Urge your Congressman to co-sponsor the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, http://gcc
A national coalition of community, faith, environmental, human rights and student groups are getting behind the legislation but we could use your support! Check out my blog http://www
Thanks so much, Jeff. I just signed the petition.
While I agree with Harry's frustration, I do think it take positive action and you are doing not just talking. I think Harry should try more of this and maybe more things will get done on this.
Thanks Jeffrey.
I wonder why your great info didn't make its way to Harry. Or maybe it did, and Harry chose not to include it.
See Harry Shearer's Profile
I was writing about Obama, not Congress, that's why.
There are too many overlapping areas of responsibility in maintaining and funding the levee system in the Crescent City. There is municipal oversight, parish/county oversight, state oversight, and federal oversight. Hence, there are many loopholes for bureaucrats to jump through to avoid accountability.
The Gulf Coast Civic Works Act may help or it may devolve into just another boondoggle. It's up to us, citoyens.
New Orleaneans may have to march on up to D.C. to rattle a few cages up there before they get any real attention.
Organized, transparent government action is the most efficient way to recover, but there is none of this, so we have many small grassroots organizations filling the gap. If you dig music and want to help out with New Orleans, check out The Human Levee Music Project: http://www
This bill is an employment and social bill, not an infrastructure bill. Also, it will set up a public corp. that will be advocating and administering the flow of money to the Gulf Coast Region for primarily projects and jobs that are for employing people in the region. This bill does not establish a Tennessee Valley Authority type program but more of an Enterprise Zone style program.
See Jeffrey Buchanan's Profile
The bill allows the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Recovery to fund local projects determined by grassroot community leaders working in partnership with their municipal governments. It gives individual recovering communities the ability to decide what they need most for sustainable recovery; whether its building a school, a health center, flood protection, affordable housing, elevating a current piece of infrastructure to avoid future flooding, creating jobs training program or perhaps doing coastal restoration, but it requires that the contractors working on these projects hire local workers and that the government give preference to local contractors and work with local community based organizations who have already done tremendous work in the recovery when possible. The goal is creating more sustainable communities and helping residents to lead. It also gives community organizations a chance to oversee that contractors are getting the job done, creating a new level of grassroots accountability. Learn more at http://gcc
Harry, I don't always agree with you, but on this one I think you are spot on. If there ever was a place to use stimulus money for a "shovel ready" project, it would be the levees in New Orleans and surrounding areas. They are spending more time on "shovel ready" projects like shoveling money on GM, BofA, and AIG instead of using it for the infrastructure that they promised it for.
(sigh) Obama's "TRILLIONS of NO-OVERSIGHT taxpayer DOLLARS for BANKERS" 'plan' could be the undoing of his presidency.
Sorry for the Shouting, but already - 3 short months into his presidency - atrocious masacre shootings are up (including several of a gunman killing his own family), gun sales are through the roof, and the Right-Wing nuts - who even in the best of times were harboring dozens of Timmy McVeigh clones - are even discussing a "MILLION MAN _ARMED_ March" on Washington, DC.
And instead of actually GIVING hard-pressed American taxpayer something for their money - like a new NOLA/Gulf Coast wetlands storm-mitigation system and new levees - Mr. Obama continues to pour uncounted TRILLIONS of taxpayer dollars down the goldman-sa
ow.ow.ow. Mr. Obama's callous disregard for NOLA (if Mr. Shearer's article is even 2/3rds correct) - is as bad as his callous disregard for the awful look of his "trillions for bankers, no oversight allowed" 'economic' policy.
Well, don't forget, the NRA is a powerful lobby, and they're backed by millions of gun-totin' paranoic rednecks..
All those folks want their guns, but they want the Feds to control "atrocious massacre shootings"? Yeah, I'm waiting for the NRA to come up with THEIR plan on how to do this.
Or do they want all the fun and the privileges of owning a houseful of guns, and none of the responsibilities, including the ugly parts where their fellow man starts a shooting spree?
That's right, wait for the cops to control the madmen with the guns, then complain bitterly about "overkill".
Jindal returns from out of state GOP fund raising trips, to declare that the state needs to tighten its belt (this after declaring he will refuse stimulus money). What is wrong with this man? He is supposed to be leading the state- he should be in DC raising he11 about getting help for LA but he is off being a political tool instead. Jindal needs to go- he will never change- he will continue to turn his back on the needs of LA and New Orleans.
I agree with you- Obama should have more boots on the ground and active programs for the state. Nagin is useless- he can't think or lead or address the problems confronting the city. Nagin is reduced to petty corruption and is dead in the water.
Harry, do you think that if the leaders of New Orleans and Louisiana had spoken more with one voice, and stuck by their early post-K aims to follow the advice of many experts and reduce the size of the city's "footprint" to one more sustainable in every way, and to elevate most structures above Katrina flood level, this situation would be any different?
Now, you have how many people who've come home to New Orleans, at great personal and public expense, rebuilt right on their old house sites? In too many cases, they are islands within blocks of still abandoned and decaying structures, far from neighbors, churches, schools, work, public transportation, and shopping.
And, how many flood-damaged structures were elevated above Katrina level? Not many, I'm guessing.
It seems it would have been more cost-effective to simply have used this Federal funding--much of which has been wasted and stolen by foreign and out-of-state contractors--- to help elevate to above K level every dwelling whose owner OR renter requested it.
There was money available to do this and many did. Those who flooded and didn' raise their houses can't get flood insurance to cover them.
I find the stimulus funding quite misplaced. As far as I'm concerned, those who defrauded and stole the millions of dollars should have been arrested. Their assets liquidated to help pay back investors.
Ridiculous, frankly.
What did you really expect? I'm from Chicago, Illinois. Obama was my state senator and US Senator. Much better talker then a do'er. Look at this Swine Flu epidemic. Are we checking and/or stopping people from coming in? Are we quaranteening anybody? NO and NO. We don't even have a HHS Sec., surgeon general, or Dept. of Health chief in place. You can only blame Bush for so long. We can't fly a jet over New York City without messing up. And you expect New Orleans to get fixed.
steamboat
We don't have at least one of our top public health leaders because certain Republican congressfolk --all male as far as I can tell---object to the administration's nominee because of her past political support by a physician whose services include providing abortions to women who request them.
(As if men have anything to add to a conversation about women's personal bodily integrity and reproductive choices)
That's why we don't have at least one top health leader.
Lets see, democrats have controlled congress since 2006 elections and it is now 2009. What have these outraged democrats in washington done for NOrleans? So lets blame it all on republicans anyway.
Oh, by the way, you are being dishonest. The abortions objected to were late term abortions, who most people with any honesty or integrity would call killing an unborn baby, not just a fetus. Keep in mind we abort over one million babies a year. Now thats something to be proud of.
The stonewalling isn't sexist or about abortion, it's about being Republican. We need to dump Vitter. Vitter is still carrying out BushCo policies.
You are right about why we don't have any top health officials yet and the truth is these people blocking Sebelius are mostly pathetic.
If it were my child, I would think that I do have some say in the matter even though all I contributed to the equation was sperm. You know, we can't gestate but we may have an interest in seeing our child born and caring for it once it is.
I probably have more liberal views on abortion than you do but please don't diminish the debate by taking one of the potential parents out of the equation.
All I just read there was headline after headline and no substance. Should the president create unwarranted mass hysteria by locking people up for attempting to travel to and from our country? Does that really make sense? 50 people got the flu and many of them live in my neighborhood. Should I stay inside and starve? Do you think Obama organized that jet flyby in NYC?
You can do what you want to cherry pick reasons why Obama is not doing well (even when they bear no connection to him, whatsoever) but you can't let Bush and his predecessors (Clinton included) off the hook yet. Our politicians have spent decades ruining this country. It won't be fixed in 100 days.
To me much of America has written off New Orleans and the low lying coastal regions as not worth saving but for a small part of the old city as a kind of historical theme park. They see the historical corruption, the racism, the greater risks of another major hurricane destroying the rest of the city and region and say no to more expendures, have the people move to other areas, give up on it. Sadly, even Pres. Obama has to be pragmatic and limit his actions to help in the long recovery.
You mean......
If first you don't secede, try, try again. We would be better off without America. At least we could keep our oil and gas profits to pay for levees and educating our children. We could put tariff's on goods passing through our port and let only Louisiana fishermen fish our waterways. All our people would live like Saudi princes.
Were is Huey P. Long when we need him?
South Louisiana Separatist League
www.myspac
Yeah, that'll work. Louisiana gets back $1.78 for every dollar the state pays to the Feds in taxes.
So, are you suggesting that Louisiana, as a separate country, would seize the off-shore wells and "nationalize" them, like some South American dictatorship? Or would you graciously allow the oil companies that went to all the work of researching the oil fields and drilling for oil, to keep their platforms, but put a crippling tariff on their output?
And who's this "all our people", Kemo Sabe? People who have bought stock in the oil companies? Oil roustabouts? Cajun bayou fishermen?
I'll just bet.
/sarcasm
This country gave up on saving my hometown. That is why I always say when asked "What did you lose in Katrina?" that I lost a country. At least I know I count for nothing in this country. There are other fools out there that think their country actually cares for their welfare. Unless you can effect the monetary or political major hitters, you don't. That is the reality of America today. And I mourn because of it. Am I sad and angry about it ? Sure. But in my everyday life I remain a New Orleanian. I enjoy the people I meet. I relish a culture like no other city in the world. Eat, drink and be merry for death awaits us all. I will not let my old country steal from me the thing that makes my home so wonderful.
oh Harry, you have to look on the bright side of things. Bankers and Wall Street insiders are still getting their bonuses, and on time! With all the anger hovering out there, that's either quit a feat or they are made of magic.
Thanks, Harry, for keeping us aware of this ongoing moral crisis.
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