Turns Out the Federal Government Cares Less About Louisiana than I thought

What Little I Thought the Government Cared About Louisiana I Found this morning is a facade.

An article in the Washington Post shows much of the $1.9 billion in funding to the Army Corp during Bush's 5 year administration has funded projects that may have been unnecessary.

"Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had already launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a huge new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic.

Except that barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing"

Often inaccurate reports were used to get projects approved despite a series of independent investigations "criticizing the Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending".

For all those who think Bush has done all he possibly can, when money was actually requested for projects to reduce flooding and shoring up the levees around Lake Pontchartrain not even one fifth of the original request was given. "Louisiana's delegation requested $27.1 million for shoring up levees around Lake Pontchartrain, the full amount the Corps had declared as its "project capability." Bush suggested $3.9 million, and Congress agreed to spend $5.7 million". $14 billion dollar plans were scaled back to $2 billion by administration officials limiting the amount that could be done in restoring coastal marshes, Louisiana's natural barrier against hurricanes.

I think the best thing that can be said is even if these projects were completed Katrina still would have torn the levees down. Still, Bush and his administration did nothing to help relieve the flooding before Katrina, they took days to start aid in Louisiana and it will take time to see if their efforts are reflecting what they have actually been capable of.

Ammendment 4:24 AM Sep 8, 2005
"you give it directly to state officials, you can kiss a good amount of it goodbye." from Ripclawe
I just noticed this blogger talking about the same subject and figured I would link it.