"Money Flowed to Questionable Projects"
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.