Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc, death and destruction on hundreds of miles of the Gulf Coast shoreline.
The American people and corporations stepped up and donated more than $700 million in cash, goods and services in the first 10 days after the storm’s end. And the private sector giving continues.
The cleanup is underway, with hundreds of examples of American courage, perseverance and compassion on display almost nightly.
Unfortunately, the federal government’s initially slow response to the devastation has led to a bidding frenzy in Washington. Both Republicans and Democrats refuse to be out spent in a slapdash effort to show their “compassion.”
President Bush has upped the ante and promised the nation that the federal government would pay for one of the largest reconstruction projects in history — costing upwards of $200 billion.
Don’t believe it for a second. If the price stays at $200 billion, it’ll be an act that simply defies the laws of human nature — especially the nature of the human beings in Congress.
And remember, money spent doesn’t necessarily mean money well spent. There are already stories of the government paying for luxury cruise ships to house some of the victims at $4,000 per person per month. You’d think the government could at least have negotiated a volume discount.
Or take the recently passed highway bill. Long a mode for congressional pork, this year’s bill contains more than $24 billion in special projects “earmarked” by members of Congress for their district and their district alone.
Or consider the tsunami relief bill passed in April. The $80 billion bill contained pork aplenty, including $25 million for the Fort Peck Fish Hatchery in Montana, says the watchdog group, Citizens Against Government Waste.
To be fair, some members of Congress, such as Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and John McCain, R-Ariz., want offsets from other parts of the budget to pay for the Katrina relief effort. But other members, such as Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, will likely find the chance to add pork to this relief simply irresistible. And as a lyric in the 1988 Robert Palmer hit adds, “She’s so fine, there’s no telling where the money went.”