10-27-05, 10:00am
“I hate the way they portray us in the media,” said hip-hop star Kanye West on a NBC fundraising telethon for the Red Cross relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina. “You see a black family, it says, ‘They’re looting.’ You see a white family, it says, ‘They’re looking for food.’”
West discarded his script for the show and denounced a race-divided society and the Bush administration for failing to provide adequate, effective and timely relief and aid going into the sixth day of the hurricane disaster for the predominantly Black city of New Orleans. West further criticized the “shoot-to-kill” order handed down by Louisiana officials. For later broadcasts, NBC censored his statement that “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”
New Orleans is two-thirds Black and 28 percent white.
So is racism the motivation that drove Bush to target the city’s anti-flooding projects for funding cuts in order to pay for his tax cuts for the rich and his war in Iraq that has, in the view of most people, failed to make the world safer?
The answer is most certainly yes.
Despite President Bush’s ability to grin and joke at several public appearances in the days immediately following the hurricane disaster began, early estimates indicate that Katrina may be the worst natural disaster in our history. But, as was reported in the major news media, it was not a surprise. Experts have warned for years of the catastrophe that a Category 4 or 5 hurricane could cause on the Gulf Coast. In Louisiana, specifically, local officials fought for, begged for and demanded federal funding to implement hurricane defense plans that could have avoided the widespread flooding of New Orleans.
But the Bush administration has continuously slashed funding for those projects. “We have long warned that we’ve got a choice of ‘pay now or pay later,’” Republican Bobby Jindal (R-LA) told the Boston Globe after the hurricane disaster expanded into a massive humanitarian disaster last September. Robert Hartwig, chief economist for the Insurance Information Institute, was quoted in Newhouse News Service in early September as saying, “It’s going to be very evident that there were an enormous number of vulnerabilities that weren’t addressed.” Toby Chaudhuri, communications director for the Campaign for America’s Future, echoed this sentiment. “This is a very hard time for many of us,” he remarked, “but we can’t forget that while the hurricane was an accident, the tragedy and horror were allowed to happen. It was not a surprise.”
Since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, including FEMA’s Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, have been cut or canceled outright. Cuts in federal funding for these programs have pushed communities across the country to compete for scarce predisaster mitigation dollars. In addition, in 2003, the Republican-controlled Congress approved a White House proposal to cut FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) in half.
Bush’s 2006 budget proposal cuts funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, the entity that has helped build much of the levee system in New Orleans and proposed major renovations in 2004 and early 2005 for which it couldn’t scrounge up the funds. These proposed cuts come after Bush’s 2005 budget proposal called for a 13 percent reduction in the Army Corps of Engineers budget, down to $4 billion from $4.6 billion in fiscal 2004.
“I’ve been here over 30 years and I’ve never seen this level of reduction,” Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district of the US Army Corps of Engineers, told the local papers prior to the 2005 hurricane season.
“Money is so tight the New Orleans district instituted a hiring freeze. The freeze is the first of its kind in about 10 years,” said Marcia Demma, chief of the Army Corps’ Programs Management Branch last June.
I think it’s extremely shortsighted,” Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) warned at the beginning of the summer. “When the Corps of Engineers’ budget is cut, Louisiana bleeds. These projects are literally life-and-death projects to the people of south Louisiana and they are [of] vital economic interest to the entire nation.
The Bush administration’s shift in concern to the “war on terrorism” and its war on Iraq have forced states to shoulder more of the responsibility to provide support for natural disasters and emergencies. Unfortunately, state budget shortfalls, fueled by cuts in direct grants to states on many levels, have meant fewer dollars for emergency management programs. In fiscal year 2004, the average budget for a state emergency management agency was $40.8 million, a 23 percent reduction from fiscal year 2003.
In an effort that showed the president’s lack of personal concern for natural disaster preparedness, Bush called for cutting the federal percentage of large-scale natural disaster preparedness expenditures from 75 percent of such costs, with states and municipalities funding the other 25 percent, to a 50 percent federal responsibility.
For Louisiana directly, Bush rejected pleas from the state’s congressional delegation, which had urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana’s coast. Ultimately a deal was struck to steer $540 million to the state over four years, far short of the needed estimated of $14 billion. In its budget, the Bush administration also proposed only $10.4 million in funding Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project (SELA), a cut of over $21 million over the previous year and a sixth of what local officials say they needed for southeast Louisiana’s chief hurricane protection project. Likewise, $35 million in projects to build and improve levees identified by the Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans simply went unfunded.
In September 2004, Terry Tullier, the New Orleans emergency preparedness director, expressed anger at learning that a federally funded study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane had been shelved. “I’m all for the war effort, but every time I think about the $87 billion being spent on rebuilding Iraq, I ask: What about us?” he told New Orleans’ Time-Picayune.
He later warned that a major hurricane would have wide repercussions. “We are so critical that if it hits the fan in New Orleans, everything this side of the Rockies will feel the economic shock waves.”
Rev. Jesse Jackson, in a statement released after the enormity of the disaster became plain, remarked,
Homeland security means more than removing people’s shoes at the airport. It means making sure that our levees, our dams, our bridges, our roads, our ports and rails are all safe. Unfortunately, the tax cuts for the rich and the billions wasted on an unnecessary war in Iraq have devastated our public infrastructure, forcing cuts at every level—including levee protection and maintenance.'The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina points to the problems of long-term divestment in our infrastructure and our communities,” said Greg Speeter, executive director of the National Priorities Project. “At the same time, the federal government has found $205 billion to fund the Iraq War. In comparison, money required for necessary infrastructure development looks like peanuts.
Last March as the Republicans in Congress began to press for passage of a $59 billion appropriation to continue the occupation of Iraq, a bloated $285 billion highway bill, the energy bill with its $12.3 billion in tax breaks to rich oil companies, and the anti-working class bankruptcy bill, Senator Landrieu warned that simultaneous budget cuts for anti-disaster projects could have dire consequences for the Gulf Coast.
'We could have lost 100,000 lives had Hurricane Ivan hit the mouth of the (Mississippi) River,” said Landrieu. “God has been good, but one of these days a hurricane is going to come and, if we don’t get projects finished, were sitting ducks.
National Guard resources and personnel needed for disaster relief stuck in Iraq prompted sharp criticism from National Guard officials and many politicians. “Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event. We need our people,” Lt. Andy Thaggard told the Washington Post. Thaggard is a spokesperson for the Mississippi National Guard, which has a brigade of more than 4,000 troops in central Iraq. Louisiana also has about 3,000 Guard troops in Baghdad.
In addition to personnel shortages, National Guard officials have complained of equipment shortages. To equip troops in Iraq, according to a report in the Detroit Free Press, the Pentagon stripped local Guard units of about 24,000 pieces of equipment. That has left Guard units at home, already seriously short of gear. Since the results of this disaster, many state officials fear that continued occupation of Iraq will negatively impact on National Guard recruitment and leaves their states unprotected against natural disasters and forest fires. This situation even generated criticism from Republican ranks. Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, called for the return of Florida’s National Guard contingent from Iraq to aid in ongoing disaster relief operations there and to bolster disaster prevention measures.
While there wasn’t enough resources, as the administration and the congressional Republicans argued, to protect the Black and working-class residents of New Orleans, there were enough resources to fund over $24 billion in pork barrel spending in the 2005 highway bill. Beautification of park trails in Maine, special grants to the alma maters of Republican leaders, and phony religious charities receiving “faith-based initiative” grants warranted the attention of the Republicans. In fact, according to a Washington Post report Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s nearly all white and upscale congressional district takes in 43 percent of all of the federal funds earmarked for Illinois. In the 2005 highway bill, Hastert’s district alone took in more than the amount set to be distributed to the entire state of South Carolina, according to media reports and the nonpartisan watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
In fact, since 1999 when he took over as speaker, Hastert has used little known House rules to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to private universities, hospitals and other businesses in his hometown alone. One such grant for $7.5 million went to a private Christian fundamentalist school to build a library; the funds were dispersed by the Department of Energy and earmarked as “biological and energy research.” Many scams such as this are done without the full knowledge or approval of most members of Congress. Hastert’s operations total billions of dollars annually for a district that for the most part is economically successful and not in desperate need of direct or immediate aid form the federal government.
Likewise, Tom DeLay, House Majority Leader, though under severe scrutiny for his involvement in illegal campaign finance activities, hasn’t been too shy to boast about the amount of federal dollars in pork he has brought to his predominantly white and upscale congressional district. In the highway bill of 2005, DeLay inserted about $70 million in road improvements for his district alone, as well as a $324 million dollar grant to develop Houston’s public transportation system, especially as it deals with his district, mainly a Houston suburb.
More egregiously, DeLay used his power as majority leader to insert a $1.5 billion dollar subsidy to a consortium of companies headquartered in his district, including Halliburton Marathon Oil and other companies. According to a letter by Representative Henry Waxman (Democrat of California), who is the ranking member on the House Government Reform Committee, sent last July to Hastert, DeLay inserted the measure after the conference assembled to negotiate the energy bill’s final provisions was closed and members had no chance to accept or reject the secret measure. In addition to this abuse of power, the money will be simply given to the consortium which will then have the power to distribute taxpayer funds, which its members don’t really need, as it sees fit. In other words, DeLay gave himself the power to legislate by personal fiat, and in so doing, ordered hundreds of millions of dollars that could have easily been used to better prepare New Orleans’ anti-flooding system to enrich his corporate buddies. The members of the consortium are major donors to DeLay’s re-election campaign, as one might expect.
Other Republican Party big wigs, such as Representative Bill Thomas of California, chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, raked in $722 million in projects, or nearly $1,000 per person for his predominantly white district north of Los Angeles. This amount, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, was $180 million more than the entire state of Louisiana received from the bill. Apparently, there was money for an illegal war, tax cuts for the rich, huge subsidies for the Republican Party’s corporate donors, the pet projects of the powerful, but just not enough to protect the Black and working-class people of New Orleans from a preventable disaster. And who would imagine that if disaster experts predicted problems for Tallahassee, Florida, Crawford or Sugar Land, Texas, Aurora, Illinois, or Kennebunkport, Maine that President Bush wouldn’t have swiftly and resolutely moved to protect his close friends, family, political allies and donors? But Bush never has regarded the Black and poor people of New Orleans, or of Anytown, USA, as his friends or family.
For Bush’s racist and anti-working-class politics of cutting needed funds in Louisiana to pay for tax cuts for the rich and a war for oil, while tens of billions were funneled to wealthy Republican Party corporate donors, tens of thousands have paid a heavy price. In addition early estimates by the Congressional Budget Office say that 400,000 jobs will be lost in the Gulf Coast region.
Bush’s crime cries out for swift justice and reparations to those damaged. Let us fight for a New Deal for the South and for all cities where racist and anti-working-class policies have withdrawn much needed funding for job creation, education and the social safety net.
| Correction from the editor:
Within minutes of posting this article, we received an e-mail from Jason B. Kello, Communications Director for Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL), saying that we incorrectly stated Foley's position on National Guard troop withdrawal from Iraq. Kello pointed out that to be accurate we should have said that Foley called for National Guard troops from states affected by Katrina to be withdrawn from Iraq.
Our error was that because Katrina hit Florida days before moving on to devastate the other Gulf Coast states, we assumed because Foley is from Florida that he was expressing concern that his state's National Guard troops were needed to provide aid to Florida residents. We assumed that he felt that the primary responsibility of Florida Guard troops was to be prepared for state emergencies in Florida rather than being stationed 10,000 miles away from their homes, families, and neighbors. Apparently, we were wrong in assuming that Foley was addressing the needs of Florida residents. Because we are striving to be completely accurate in our reporting, we appreciate the clarification, regret any inconvenience caused, and are only too happy to pass on the new information to our readers. |
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