This immediate crisis, even one of this magnitude, will pass and New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast will eventually dry out. Then the worst of it comes because the Republican party’s unshakeable antipathy to federal government services makes them philosophically incapable of righting this sinking ship of state. I didn’t vote for him the first time but when Bush inherited a robust economy and a nation at peace I said to myself, “How bad can it be, really? I lived through Reagan’s lunacy, I’ll live through this guy’s.”
Now, however, when we Americans need a federal government that believes in the good the federal government can do when it dedicates itself to that purpose, we are instead left to the mercies of either corporate raptors dipping back into the public sector before they dip back out with all they can carry with them or Cato Institute laissez-fairists. This President wants to dismantle Social Security, one of the most efficient government agencies we’ve ever had because he doesn’t believe in government (except when he feels like playing army). Why then are we so surprised that he was slow to mobilize federal resources to come to the aid of citizens in need? He sees his job, as the leader of government, to destroy government so that the free-market can work its magic on all that ails us.
He is wrong. Instead, this is a time for an efficient yet massive Great Society, a new Tennessee Valley Authority, overseeing and shepherding the private sector to safeguard the interests of the many, not just corporate shareholders. This is a time for bold, grand thinking in the short term like freezing oil prices and rescinding tax cuts for the wealthy (if the Republicans try to cram through their repeal of the Estate Tax right now more inner cities than just New Orleans just might start disintegrating with rage). Yet more importantly our economy will need aggressive, creative governing in the long term. Reconstruction of the entire Gulf Coast of the United States is not a contract Bush can just bestow upon Halliburton. It will need to be a massive public works project not only to provide housing for the hundreds of thousands who have lost theirs, but to provide employment for the hundreds of thousands who are now instantly out of work. If Bush doesn’t want to go down in history as our most failed President since Herbert Hoover, stewarding twin catastrophic failures – in Iraq and on our own Gulf Coast – he will need to forget Reagan and remember Roosevelt.