Everything -- everything -- eventually becomes fodder for a partisan food fight.
In some ways, the nation's response to Katrina is cleaving the public down partisan lines as a domestic issue, just as Iraq has on foreign policy. Both issues have become polarizing, rather than unifying, issues for the country, said Glen Bolger, a pollster for Hill Republicans.
According to a poll this month for the Hotline political newsletter, which asked whether Congress should tackle Iraq or the Katrina recovery first in 2006, Americans wanted the Gulf Coast rebuilt by 58 percent to 28 percent.
Democratic and independent voters generally agreed on addressing Katrina's problems, while self-identified Republicans chose Iraq, 46 percent to 37 percent.
Update [2005-12-26 11:10:29 by David Roberts]: Also, don't miss the extremely thorough L.A. Times rundown on the history of bureaucratic feuding that doomed New Orleans' levees.
Comments
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billofrights Posted 4:46 am
26 Dec 2005
To the Editor:
If the hundreds of thousands of displaced Gulf Coast residents, as well as the rest of our citizens, want to prevent an "Iraq style" rebuilding plan for the region, dominated by private contractors and conservative ideology, the time to act is now. Already, K street contract buffets have been held and the Louisiana delegation has pushed its own outlandish funding proposal in Congress, heavily influenced by regional lobbyists. Prevailing wages have been shamelessly pushed down by the President - can desperate, imported foreign laborers, as in Iraq, be far behind? Lost in the rush to the public trough are the mid- and long-term housing, job and environmental issues that confront everyone with daunting choices.
Lost too is the public voice for the displaced citizens, and the public interest of the taxpayers who will be picking up the tab. How will the Gulf coast citizens, scattered over thousands of miles and dozens of states, most without documents, protect their land and homes, participate in the vital decision of where and when to rebuild, and claim a good portion of the jobs they so badly need? How will the non-profit organizations, especially the environmental ones, bring their insights to bear so that in the rush to rebuild, we don't duplicate the tragic past patterns that made the effects of the two hurricanes worse?
If some don't like the trailer "ghettoes" that FEMA initially had in mind for the short and mid-term housing solution, how will the alternative housing vouchers for hundreds of thousands create local communities and job access, since there aren't anywhere near this number of vacancies within 10-25 miles of the affected regions? It looks like the defacto national policy is migration. And how are the issues of "moral hazard," flood insurance, permanent homes, risky building locations and the need for public transportation going to be reconciled with the pressing needs of all these people?
The people of the Gulf, and the nation, need a public planning process, in the full light of national media coverage, within sixty days, that will allow all the unheard public interest voices, average citizens as well as the special interests, to make their case and recommendations. Congress can and should authorize this. This suggestion was made by Joel Rogers, author and teacher, at a Gulf future panel discussion held by the Center for American Progress on Sept. 15. However, to be more than a temporary forum, this process needs to be linked to a new regional authority, headed by truly a bi-partisan body which can guide the spending and reconstruction - after a "cooling off" period where everyone gets a chance to think through how this ought to be done.
"Nation building" and the reconstruction of more effective democratic processes are urgent tasks right here in America, nowhere more than in our own Gulf coast.
William R. Neil
Rockville, MD
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David Roberts Posted 8:44 am
26 Dec 2005
www.grist.org
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redboat Posted 1:31 am
30 Dec 2005
Goodbye, New Orleans
To encourage people to return to New Orleans, as Bush is doing, without funding the only plan that can save the city from the next Big One, is to commit an act of mass homicide. If, after all the human suffering and expense of this national ordeal, the federal government can't be bothered to spend the cost of a tunnel from Logan Airport to downtown Boston, then the game is truly over.
eddy out, redboat
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