"Money Flowed to Questionable Projects"

Nick Gillespie | September 8, 2005

That's the Wash Post's headline to a story about Army Corps of Engineering dough in the Bayou State. The subhed drives the point home even further: "State Leads in Army Corps Spending, but Millions Had Nothing to Do With Floods."

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

Whole thing here.

Let's hope the pols involved get investigated along with everyone else some time in the distant future.

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|9.8.05 @ 8:29AM|#

Apologies for veering a little off-topic, but I myself question some particular spending items.

What the fuck is up with FEMA handing out $2000 IN CASH to each of the refugees? Why isnt' anyone questioning this?

Another query: how long is the government going to be supporting all these people? Are these homeless super-centers going to be open indefinitely?

|9.8.05 @ 8:38AM|#

Brownie's just trying to save his butt with the $2000 debit cards.

Constantine|9.8.05 @ 8:40AM|#

The entire Mississippi River is a magnet for congressional pork projects on its bordering states and has been for years. This article from March 2004 highlights some of them, including the improved canal lock in Louisiana.

|9.8.05 @ 8:54AM|#

[slightly off-topic rant]

I heard some Brit idiot from the BBC this morning, talking about the recovery and response effort. It truly amazes me how people will spout horseshit as if it's gospel, without a second thought.

First, he regurgitates the rediculous assertion that "hostility towards big government has increased with the Bush Administration in power". Holy shit, do people even THINK before they talk? Especially those whose voices reach millions? Deezamn!

Next, he asks the two rhetoricals:

(Paraphrasing from memory here) "Will serious discussion finally begin on Global Warming, even though scientists say that no link can be found between hurricanes and global warming?"

and then, this beauty:

"and, will Americans finally start to question their hostility towards big government, and their reluctancy to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure?"

While he's at it, why doesn't the fool ponder whether George W. Bush will finally give up his peacemongoring, dovish, diplomatic foreign policy, and get around to actually using the military?

In what crrrrrazy parallel universe are we not taxed enough, or are hostile towards big government in anything but rhetoric? And why would "serious discussion" begin about something that has no provable link to the hurricane, and is merely an invention of the Global Warming alarmists?

Fucking eurotrash!

[/rant]

|9.8.05 @ 9:12AM|#

Gee, government-types using money earmarked for one thing on pet pork projects? Don't tell the other states, or they might start doing the same with that tobacco settlement...

Pet peeve of the day (because I see it EVERYWHERE): There is no "e" in "ridiculous". Are there schools teaching an alternate spelling of that word? Doesn't matter what type of website I go to, if that word is used in a comment section/forum, it's 50/50 divided between with and without the "e". I think it's about to go over the hump into being used on purpose, like "teh".

ed|9.8.05 @ 9:18AM|#

It's vs. its is still the undisputed champ, jf.

|9.8.05 @ 9:19AM|#

JF:

It was on purpose. I like saying "reeee-diculous", and I mirror that in my blog comments. I'm not writing a term paper here.

Of course, I don't say "reee-dicule", I say "ridicule". Big difference!

Anyway, perhaps my intentions would be more apparent if I spelled it "reeediculous"? Then I could escape the wrath of the 9am Spelling Security Administration?

tomWright|9.8.05 @ 9:22AM|#

"Let's hope the pols involved get investigated along with everyone else some time in the distant future."

Dude, pass some of that over here, don't bogart it....

What is it?, Reason Red?

/end-sarc

Shannon Love|9.8.05 @ 9:39AM|#

"The Bush administration has proposed cuts in the Corps budget, and has tried to shift the agency's emphasis from new construction to overdue maintenance. But most of those proposals have died quietly on Capitol Hill, and the administration has not fought too hard to revive them."

See, it was all Bush's fault. If he had tried harder to overrule the Louisiana congressional delegation none of this would have happened! Besides, maintenance is boring. Lets build new shiny stuff instead!

What really gets me is the people who don't understand that such poor decision making isn't an attribute of having a particular politicians or party in power but is instead a systemic attribute of political decision making period. Government spending priorities are always going to be severely skewed by the short-term political interest of politicians.

|9.8.05 @ 9:48AM|#

I don't think that it's because people don't understand, Shannon, but rather they willfully disbelieve, instead carrying the fantasy that their favorite party makes mostly intelligent decisions, if a few are mistaken, while the opposition is just a bunch of idiots intentionally making bad decisions because (it lines the pockets of their favorite special interests/it helps them at the polls/makes them look like visionaries fighting for their constituency/they are complete and total morons who can't manage their own personal checkbooks).

|9.8.05 @ 9:56AM|#

tomWright,
You've hit the point.
Heads should roll, but they won't. They never do.

Graft, corruption and mismanaged funds - in Louisiana?

I'm shocked! Shocked I say!

Phil|9.8.05 @ 10:18AM|#

MNG, would you rather they sit around being supported by the public, or would you rather they get a one-time $2000 cash payment to buy a change of clothes, rent a place to live and look for a job?

|9.8.05 @ 10:19AM|#

This is why I fear the coming "reforms" in the aftermath of this catastrophe.

|9.8.05 @ 10:36AM|#

IN defense on Mike Brown.

Some questions that the press needs to answer before his fate is decided:

How much resources did he have? Even if FEMA was 50,000 strong(and I am overstating the probale number)-total area affected in square miles, and population does not seem to be open for discussion. Is there any comparable disaster?

It was convenient for the news to cover the situation in a city, where people are massed together. The problem is that if there are a number of people, one could once have assumed that they would be helping each other, and at less risk then the ones seperated from the larger numbers. Bush may have seen Geraldo on the seen screaming 'babies and triage', but where was the governor?

Another issue is that Gov. Blanco, saw the hurricane thru a political prism, and perhaps her unwillingness to accept aid from a Republican President, whom she may have correctly believed would hog all HER 'glory'. How much of her failures, and the extent is yet to be written...but it is fair to say she is done.

Mary Landrieu? Won her seat with a plurality, not a majority. She just lost 200,000 democratic voters to mostly red states. Those votes are gone, and politcally dead. 50,000 democrats in Texas, means no real big politcal change for Texas. It crushes the democratic machine in Louisiana.

Dick Morris has a good piece on the disaster in 'The Hill'. If you are a dem aspiring to do damage to Bush over this, give up. There is nothing the Federal government could have done, that the State does not also have the same responsiblity for.

In the immortal words of Tip O'Niell, "all politcs are local". While the dems are calling for investigations, they are openly exposing a State run democratic party to any and all criticism. Bush will counter with words of encouragement for the Reconstruction-this is easier than the new deal-it will be just one city, the city that Bush built. In this day and age, the dems have become prisoners to instant gratification for their hatred of Bush, to a point where they have abdicated their roles in politics.

Wehn HRC gets the nomination, and loses the presidential bid, how much more hatred will they hold?

Louisiana has the worst roads in the country. Even Arkansas has better roads. Where does all the money get spent in Louisiana?

|9.8.05 @ 10:39AM|#

Oh, Evan, I so agree - although Brit coverage (the Guardian, say) has been good overall, they insist on this bizarre idea that "small-government" conservatism" was somehow responsible for the government's fuck-up. My God... have the libertarians been in charge this whole time and NOT KNOWN IT?

|9.8.05 @ 10:46AM|#

Louisiana gets less road money because it won't conform its liquor laws to the federal standards.

"Government spending priorities are always going to be severely skewed by the short-term political interest of politicians." You'd do well, Shannon, to distinguish between the decision-making that comes up through the bureacracy, and that carried out by elected officials. Politicians love new projects that can start off with one of those stupid groundbreaking events where everyone gets a hard hat and shovel.

mard, disaster relief at the scale necessary in New Orleans is a federal responsibility, as FEMA itself has made clear. The City of New Orleans has nothing near the airlift capability to keep the Convention Center supplied. That's why we have FEMA. The only people making this claim are scared politicians and their defenders - no one in the emergency response community itself is saying that.

|9.8.05 @ 10:56AM|#

Phil:

I am not aware of this $2000 cash payout as being a "one-time". Mind you, this is on top of all the other assistance, including taxpayer-financed home reconstruction IN A FUCKING FLOOD BOWL.

So when you're dealing with cash, there is no chance of fraud? Will these people be spending this money only on the bare necessities? Is this money contingent on them making an effort to get back on their own feet?

Or is this all just a Brownie bribe?

|9.8.05 @ 10:57AM|#

Congress is never held responsible for anything, this despite the fact that all of the power eminates from legislature. A good example is Brown being appointed as FEMA director. The guy was obviously one of those unqualified political hacks appointed to important posts in every administration and Bush ought to be taken to task for that. At the same time, the Senate confirmed the guy. Why didn't the Senate properly use its oversight authority and tell Bush to pound sand and appoint someone qualified for the job. The Senate certainly has no problem filabustering qualified judges, yet, they somehow managed to let Brown slip through. Perhaps just once it would be nice if the Congress were interested in doing its job rather than appealing to nutjob interest groups and making sure the good old boys back home can feed on the government pork.

There is an old saying that if you are not qualified for an entry level position at a federal agency don't worry, if you have the right connections you can someday be appointed to run that agency. All of this is nothing new or confined to any particular party. It is part of our political culture whereby the people who get elected feel entitled to and view their primary purpose in life to loot the federal treasury for their own purposes.

And people have a problem with giving these clowns less money. Everyone who argues against tax cuts is argueing that these people deserve a higher percentage of your income. We pay trillions of dollars in tax money and get precious little in return. The whole operation needs to be radically defunded and scaled back.

|9.8.05 @ 11:17AM|#

"Louisiana has the worst roads in the country. Even Arkansas has better roads. Where does all the money get spent in Louisiana?"

Son. You keep asking fool questions like that and you'll find yourself at the bottom of the bayou.

I did my own research-
http://www.fema.gov/about/history.shtm

"About 2,500 full-time employees in the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate are supplemented by more than 5,000 stand-by disaster reservists."

An organization of 7500 was supposed to deal with, three affected states, within 72-96 hours? Oh, wait they coordinate response...but then the Red Cross is saying they weren't allowed in to the Superdome for fear it would keep people from evacuating?

(I mean come on, Jesus fed 20,000 on the mount instantly, maybe we can offer him a job at the Superdome, or with FEMA. He'll work cheap and pay taxes to boot.)

Logistically speaking, (and I am defining logistics as deployment of resources to affected areas) it was an impossible task. The press still has failed to define the enormity of what happened-because they still don't know...

But Michael Brown, he should be fired?

IT would be an easy move...but pointless all the same.

|9.8.05 @ 11:22AM|#

Call it "libertarian heresy", but...
When compared to the gross misuse of public funds and pork spending we've seen lately (bridges to barely inhabited islands in Alaska etcetera), the $2000 bribes to "refugees" seem like a relatively good deal for the taxpayer and for the flood victims. The money will, of course, go right into whatever economy the refugees end up in (DAllas, Houston etc..) and will certainly do more to help the refugees regain some control over their own destinies than handing over the same money to some Gov. Agency that are there to "help" them.
The hand-outs shouldn't be long-term, of course, but in the short-term they seem like the least of all evils.

John,

"The Senate certainly has no problem filabustering qualified judges, yet, they somehow managed to let Brown slip through." I agree with you that Brown and other hacks should not be confirmed, but in the Senate's defense, they have always given the president much greater lattitude in executive branch appointments than judicial. He's presumed to have the right to appoint his own team.

|9.8.05 @ 11:40AM|#

Joe,

There is no defending the appointment of Brown other than to say that it is part of a larger Washington culture of privileged hacks making their living off of the government trough. I hate people like that. At best moderately competent at worst downright incompetent children of the upper class who went to the right schools and met the right people and manage sail through life from one privileged job to the next. I wish it were confined to one party, but it is endemic.

|9.8.05 @ 11:43AM|#

The $2000 payoff would have been better if were instead $5000, but given as soon as the refugees arrived, were processed, saw a doctor, and maybe spent the night on a cot to get their heads together. After that, they could go to Motel 6, the bus station, rent an apartment, whatever. Last time I looked, hotels/motels and restaurants were a lot better at housing and feeding people than the freaking Astrodome, where we are laying out huge dollars (like $25 million/month, paid by Harris County, ultimately to be repaid by FEMA). Also, there is a nasty stomach virus that is sweeping through there now, about half the people have it, not dangerous, but predictable when you have large groups of people living together on cots.

|9.8.05 @ 11:54AM|#

"Why didn't the Senate properly use its oversight authority and tell Bush to pound sand and appoint someone qualified for the job."

That would entail at least some Republican senators to actually oppose one of Bush's nominees for something. Last time I checked, I don't remember too many Republicans out there actually trying to hold this President responsible for anything much less hold up a confirmation.

"The Senate certainly has no problem filabustering qualified judges, ..."

I take it you are implying that it was the senate Dems who should have filibustered? Because if some R's would vote against it then a filibuster would not be necessary, they could simply vote it down. But I infer from your choice of words that you wouldn't expect the Senate R's to vote against a Republican presidents appointment. And if it's just the Dems who filibustered this guy, all of the Bush supporters would be screaming "obstruction" and "The President deserves his man" just like they have with every other attempt to stop a nomination.

The fault here lies with the Senate Republicans who refuse to be anything but a rubber stamp for this President's poor choices. yet somehow I don't think you and I will reach that same conclusion

|9.8.05 @ 11:58AM|#

John, as far as endemic and bipartisan goes, I'll just remind you that Clinton's FEMA director was James Lee Witt.

|9.8.05 @ 12:19PM|#

I have to agree with John. As a refugee from the DC pattycake daisy chain, I think that Senators like Mary Landrieu who "just want to slap" Bush are more guilty than any Executive Branch official.

As the article notes, Bush budgeted more for Louisiana public works than Clinton did during Bubba's last five years.

How much of the Bush monies went to peculations by hacks like Landrieu, Blanco, and other Dems?

Adam|9.8.05 @ 12:20PM|#

I love how the WaPo buried this 12 paragraphs into the article:

Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were designed to protect against a Category 3 storm, and the levees that failed were already completed projects.

|9.8.05 @ 12:26PM|#

I agree with joe. Say what you will about Clinton, but for the most part the people he appointed were qualified for the positions they filled.

The thing that is whipping me is that even if you're going to have a government response that leans heavily on the private sector, you still need to provide a framework to get it done. Why weren�t Wal-Mart, Ford, Budweiser, Grey Hound and etc. in the FEMA loop to begin with? Just because private entities will step up doesn't mean you can't coordinate their efforts to augment a leaner, meaner FEMA.

|9.8.05 @ 12:27PM|#

Adam, the Corps had been asking for money to expand the project for years.

The parallels to Iraq keep piling up: "My commanders on the ground tell me they have enough troops to do their job." Yes, they have enough troops to carry out the missions they're assigned. But what the President never mentions is that the missions they're assigned aren't adequate to their goals. "The Corps said the levees were complete." Well, yes, the levees capable of holding in a Level 3 storm were complete. That's not the point.

Adam|9.8.05 @ 12:42PM|#

joe - what project had the Corps been asking for money to expand? They wanted to replace the industrial canal lock, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that ANYONE other than the Times-Picayune was interested in building bigger, stronger levees (and I've been looking - please do share if you've got something I should see).

|9.8.05 @ 12:54PM|#

Let's hope the pols involved get investigated along with everyone else

At least some humor has come out of all this.

|9.8.05 @ 1:00PM|#

Complaining about the $2000 cards is a little strage. That amounts to $640M worth of the $50B that is going to be approved today to deal with the disaster.

If you want to cry sometime, find a good estimate of what the total bill will be, and divide it by the number of disposessed people. Then think of how much better off they would be if they had just been given the money themselves and allowed to move to Austin or Pheonix and ride out their days on a trust fund.

Adam|9.8.05 @ 1:00PM|#

joe - nevermind - here's the LA Times on the levee projects.

Adam|9.8.05 @ 1:11PM|#

On Capitol Hill in recent years, several Democrats warned that more money should be marked for the protection of New Orleans. For instance, in September 2004, Landrieu said she was tired of hearing there was no money to do more work on levees.

"We're told, can't do it this year. Don't have enough money. It's not a high enough priority," she said in a Senate speech. "Well, I know when it's going to get to be a high enough priority."

She then told of a New Orleans emergency worker who had collected several thousand body bags in the event of a major flood. "Let's hope that never happens," she said.

But in May 2004, then Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he had visited the levees as a guest of Landrieu and believed them adequate.

He praised the ancient water pumps for keeping the waters from cascading into the city, proclaiming them "these old, old pumps that hadn't been changed since before the turn of the century, that still keep New Orleans dry."

Adam|9.8.05 @ 1:29PM|#

After reading the LA Times account, I can see how one could blame Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton, but it's tough to blame Bush 43 for a project that was going to take at least 10 years.

|9.8.05 @ 1:54PM|#

Adam, did you miss the part about Bush requesting far less money for levee and flooding projects than the Corps requested? It's right in the article you linked to.

But there is probably a more important battle here - that between the experts and the politicians. What the hell does the Senator from Nevada know about flood control?

I'd like to see Congress adopt a no-earmarks policy for public infrastructure. They set the overall funding level, maybe the level that gets put into each of several broad categories, and projects are funded based on their inclusion on a list drawn up under the guidance of a body that has both the expertise to make wise decisions, and the political cover to make those decisions stick.

Which can then be approved by an executive committee, requiring a simple majority vote for purely internal matters, and a 2/3 vote for...

Shannon Love|9.8.05 @ 2:06PM|#

joe,

"You'd do well, Shannon, to distinguish between the decision-making that comes up through the bureacracy, and that carried out by elected officials."

You are falling prey to the technocratic fallacy, the belief that dispassionate bureaucrats can be trusted to make good decisions. It doesn't work that way. It is the politicians who fund the technocrats so their institutional imperative is to kowtow to the politicians. A good example is in the article where ACE does a study the senator doesn't like and she orders them to do it again until the get the "right" answer.

Technocrats can't save you from short-sighted politics.

|9.8.05 @ 2:27PM|#

Pet peeve of the day (because I see it EVERYWHERE): There is no "e" in "ridiculous".

It's vs. its is still the undisputed champ, jf.

Your right. But the sad thing is, most people could care less about proper, sensable English. Its up to people like you and I to tow the line. Were the only ones who now better.

|9.8.05 @ 3:08PM|#

I'd like to see Congress adopt a no-earmarks policy for public infrastructure.

Yeah, and I'd like to see Congress adopt a no-pork policy for public spending. Equally realistic, because the two are closely related. Without earmarks it's much harder to game the system for graft money and bribes, which is the main game played in Congress.

On a different note, joe, Bush just is not to blame for the levee failures and flooding in N.O. Nor is it his fault, or anyone's in D.C., that a full evacuation never took place, or that the disaster centers were unprepared. Bush IS to blame for appointing an apparent incompetent to run FEMA, and for bowing to (bipartisan) pressure to create DHS and fold FEMA into it.

|9.8.05 @ 4:27PM|#

Shannon, that's why it is so important to decouple the recommendations of the experts from the politics. Under the system I'd like to see, whan a politician tells the bureaucrat to "do it again," the bureaucrat can tell him to go pound sand without having any consequences to fear.

Shelby, I don't consider a "no earmarks" policy for the transportation bill, or the Army Corps bill, or the Defense Appropriations Bill, to be any less realistic than the "Pay-Go" rules that had broad bipartisan support throughout the 1990s.

Pols could still bring up projects and twist arms and trade horses to get bridges to name after themselves - they'd just have to do it outside of the must-pass feeding trough of large authorization/funding bills.

I agree that Bush is to blame for his FEMA pick. But there is another failure to lay at his feet: during any major crisis, there are going to be dozens of agencies and figures running around, getting in each other's way, and creating bureaucratic chaos. It's inevitable. The solution to this is to have strong executive leadership - tell the Such and Such Authority "I don't care about your procedures, let the trucks through!" This takes somebody big enough to knock heads together. We didn't get any of that - not from Bush, not from Chertoff, and not form Brown.

|9.8.05 @ 8:53PM|#

Putting an earmark on a project doesnt mean it will be built.
Currently the Corps has $38 BILLION of earmarked projects , but NO FUNDING for them.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/usace.htm
Unless the actual budget specifies a project AND supplies the funding it doesnt happen. New construction only has a budget of $2 billion per year.
Of course earmarks get local publicity but little else happens.

Comparing the spending in california and Louisiana on the basis of their population is dumb.
LA has much more waterways and drainage problems than CA, and those are the main missions of the ACE. What about the $230 million spent on restoring aquatic life on the Columbia river, and salmon dont even vote !

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