Rep. Baker of Baton Rouge is overheard telling lobbyists: “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.”
Baker explains later he didn’t intend flippancy but has long wanted to improve low-income housing.
Jackass. Pols really can not control themselves, can they?
Vladi G
This guy is what, 55-60 years old. I think some of the people a little too old for the internet age haven’t quite caught on to the fact that EVERYTHING they say is eventually going to be heard by someone with an outlet, and if it’s damning enough, a lot more people than they ever expected are going to hear it.
Zifnab
Let them come out and say it. I want to see the true colors of our representatives. When politicians stand up and utter glowing praise for 98-year-old racist senators or thank god for kill’n all the poor folk down in the Big Easy, I can’t help but smile. The truth – of character and conscience – always seems to leak through. About time these hacks (and that goes for those small minded bigot Democrats too) are dragged out into the fresh air where they can gag on it.
Krista
It is about time that someone sees the poison behind the polish. Can’t help but wonder what all the other politicians say when they think nobody’s listening. I think if we knew, we’d be sickened.
capelza
I’m not posting the following quote to be partisan, just another example for dumb things to say at the wrong time. I would feel the same way if he had been a Democrat.
I saw it on “The Daily Show” (a clip from another show , Connected Coast to Coast?)…Jack Burkman (Republican stratagist)
There ARE things you just don’t say outloud, you know what I mean?
Miller
Why not just force the low wage earners working on the relief and reconstruction to accept even lower wages? Long hours at low wages with no overtime pay will teach them how to become productive citizens. They can save a large part of their $18,000 a year earnings towards the purchase of a home, and they won’t need public housing.
capelza
Miller, didn’t Bush just dump the “prevailing wage” standards for the region?
DougJ
Come on, John, this all part of our new faith-based public housing policy.
Davebo
I think he meant “We cleaned up in public housing in New Orleans..
As in this..
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91514628@N00/41726907/
demimondian
Exactly! And it’s a part of our newly improved No Child Left education policy. If the kids spend enough time in the rain, then they’ll develop all sorts of cool diseases. It’s going to be tragic when they die, but it will provide more babies for the President to eat.
Krista
Maybe that’s why he always looks like he’s ready to start giggling. He’s EATING THEIR HAPPINESS!
demimondian
Seriously…de-snarking for a moment. I’m glad that the Mayor can find a silver lining in the catastrophe that Katrina caused. I hope that he now champions the correct way to keep the catastrophe in the public housing in New Orleans from recurring: move it inland.
Pathetically, his ghoulish quip about cleaning out the Augean stables won’t get him removed from office. Moving the people to Baton Rouge, however, would.
DougJ
He sounds like little Travis Bickle in Taxi Drive:
“Someday a rain will come that will wash the scum off the streets.”
Otto Man
Great post title, John.
wilson
John, why is no one asking about how the Bush people justify $100 billion for relief? Let’s say we have 400,000 families seriously affected. That amounts to $250,000 to each family. Median home price in NO is something like $125,000. Is Bush just asking for billions expecting to spend less than that or has he lost his mind? Perhaps he is doing this “authorize funds” drill to keep the economy from tipping into recession, and will not actually spend the $100 billion.
I thought if your house went to splinters from a hurricane or earthquake you got to apply for guaranteed loans (not grants) from FEMA.
Color me perplexed.
jg
Where is he going to find $100 billion? Didn’t he cut most federal income?
Mac Buckets
There’s a lot more to it than just rebuilding residential buildings. There are businesses, infrastructure, clean-up, the list literally goes on and on. I’ll be stunned if $100B is enough.
Miller
The money will of course be spent where it will do the most good – for the 2006 and 2008 election campaigns and the financial contributors to those campaigns.
Pb
Do you think that $250,000 to each family would be too much? Of course, unlike the settler families in Israel, I doubt that our own citizens will personally see that much of the money anyhow.
StupidityRules
Since Haliburton will get a big contract to rebuild all of New Orleans I’m guessing the $100B will be gone when they have fixed the roof of the Super Dome.
How to get the $100B, I’m guessing slavery will be back. You ‘ll make a lot of money if you don’t have to pay people at all.
jg
Well he did just suspend the minimum wage in N O. Maybe slave labor is back. Weird. I thought these guys only wanted to go back to pre-Depression days, apparently they want pre-Civil War.
Trent
I agree that the total cost will be this much or more, but they don’t need to approve this much up front. That’s dumb.
10 billion is MORE than enough to pay the bills for the initial recovery.
It’s just going to turn into more draining of the federal bank and paying off the cronies and they will fight tooth and nail against accountability.
wilson
“There’s a lot more to it than just rebuilding residential buildings. There are businesses, infrastructure, clean-up, the list literally goes on and on. I’ll be stunned if $100B is enough.”
How much infrastructure is needed to support 400,000 families? How much is destroyed? I hear the port is supposed to be up and running within a few weeks.
Have not heard of structural damage to roads, railroads or freeways.
If NO and LA were called on to borrow what they need, insured, at low rates, I doubt they would call for more than $2 billion for state and city infrastructure repair and $2.5 billion for higher levees. Federal infrastructure losses are probably no more than the true state and local infrastructure losses.
How many uninsured losses are businesses expecting to attribute to the hurricane? I can see making low cost insured loans available to overcome uninsured losses tied to the hurricane (and not someone in South Dakota who has some loan justification tenuously tied to the hurricane), but would not expect to see anything like $25 billion in loan requests.
Clean-up for 400,000 families amounts to what? $5000 per family amounts to $2 billion.
Looks like $100 billion includes large amounts for emotional distress, loss of loved ones, pain and suffering, etc. Unfortuantely, money now cannot bring back the lives lost, or truly undo the personal suffering from five days in a flooded attic or crowded convention center.
Demdude
Brown Removed from the Katrina Efforts.
Check out new services – MSNBC.COM
Krista
Yeah, but it LOOKS good to approve $10B all at once, as opposed to the same amount in smaller increments. I’m worried about the same thing, that the money will be irresponsibly spent, and then they’ll wind up having to cut corners on something really vital.
ppGaz
Things to say when you are ready for retirement:
“We didn’t know about the people at the Civic Center.”
“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”
“This is not the time to play the Blame Game.”
“Most of those people were underpriviliged anyway.”
“Louisiana is a city that is under water.”
“We’ve turned a corner in New Orleans.”
ppGaz
Ooops, the White House has issued a correction.
The President said, a week ago:
“Brownie, you are doing a heck of a lousy job.”
News media incorrectly reported the President’s remark, but the correction has now been applied.
Thank you.
Mr. Brown can be reached at home, effective today.
demimondian
Half of the I-10 causeway across the Lake is destroyed; the other half is damaged.
StupidityRules
So, what jackass hired Mr. Brown?
ppGaz
GWB and Joe Lieberman, both men of faith. I feel so … sad … for them. It must be tough on “people of faith” when they find out that they have been complete horse’s asses.
Trent
Umm, guys… He just returned to Washington… To get his fucking medal… So he can wear it around N’awlins… Like at Mardi Gras…
Don’t be so thick.
Trent
Well, if they need some liposuctions…
Krista
Well, this is the man who seriously asked, “What didn’t go right?” So why wouldn’t he think that “Brownie” was perfectly qualified and did a wonderful job?
zzyzx
New Orleans itself has nearly a half million people, and 1.4 million in the metro region. You’ll probably have to at least double that figure.
wilson
“Half of the I-10 causeway across the Lake is destroyed; the other half is damaged.”
Freeway damage looks similar to what Los Angeles had after earthquake. I would expect $150-200 million will fix the damage. At most, I would call interstate issues seen to date a $1 billion issue.
“New Orleans itself has nearly a half million people, and 1.4 million in the metro region. You’ll probably have to at least double that figure.”
When I talk of 400,000 families impacted, that translates into 1.6 million persons. Devastating flooding was 80% of the city, not the entire metro area, or all of Louisiana.
FEMA talked of $26,200 cap per family for repairs, car replacement, funerals, moving and storage.
Per Bloomberg: “Of the money allocated to FEMA, $23.2 billion will be used to house, feed and provide medical care to victims. It includes costs for home repairs, funerals, replacement of vehicles, moving and storage. The expenses are capped at $26,200 per household.” http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=au3Y6UyrUxGg&refer=top_world_news
With 400,000 seriously impacted families, each drawing $26,200, we get to $10.5 billion. That is a ton left over for the good folks in Texas and elsewhere provinding medical care, housing, and food. Might want to see what is being charged per day for use of the Astrodome.
I still say it looks like “shark jumping” by the media to say we will need $100 billion from Congress (however much we would want to spend the money on ourselves, as opposed to families relocated in Israel, or “infrastructure” in Iraq).
over it
I found this to be interesting. To say the least. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t the ‘group’ that vetted him for the position contain Democrats as well? Looks to me as though both sides of the aisle dropped the ball on this one. So, once again, there is blame o’plenty to be doled out.
demimondian
Yes, and a bunch of the lefty sites are saying “Hell, yeah. SO let’s find the people on both sides of the aisle who should have caught this, and hold ’em all responsible.”
I would be so happy to see that again and again…
Steve
I read the transcript of Brown’s confirmation hearing, chaired by Sen. Lieberman. It started off with glowing introductions by Sens. Allard (who is still in the Senate) and Campbell (who is not) and went on from there. Lieberman treated the whole thing like some genial back-slapping joke. At one point Brown actually gives some pretty good answers to substantive questions.
He was only being confirmed for the deputy director job then, not the directorship of FEMA, but still, you will search the transcript in vain for any sign that any Senator, Republican or Democrat, took this proceeding as anything other than pro forma. Hindsight is 20/20, but still, when you look back, you at least want to see people taking their jobs seriously, when a nation trusts them with its stewardship.
over it
From here.
If true….yet another prime example of what appears to be a contagious form of foot in mouth syndrome.
jobiuspublius
The problem with blaming both sides of the isle is that, there are more than 2 sides of the isle. Hehe. The other problem with blaming both sides of the isle is that one side controls the agenda, and the other does not. There is enormous amounts of arm twisting. Base closings anyone? Having said that, I prefer principled officials that do the right thing anyway. But, I’m not interested in a career in politics. I cannot accept the both sides of the isle meme. It’s flawed.
Defense Guy
Politicians would be funny if only they weren’t so dangerous. Kind of like rabid squirrels, only with the power to tax.
jg
It all comes back there don’t it. Good little conservative that you are you brought up the big bad tax man to scare us all.
Taxes aren’t the problem. Its where the money goes and why one of our political parties is so concerned with relieving the tax burden on only some citizens thats a problem. I agree we are taxed too high and a lot of the tax dollars are wasted but I don’t see why the bulk of the tax cuts went to people who weren’t unduly burdened trying to pay them. I pay $500 every 2 weeks to the feds. Before the tax cut I paid $530. Hooray Bush! Meanwhile Todd and Muffy are loving life because they no longer have to pay lawyers to hide their money. Hooray Bush!
DougL
(I’m reading the “Hehe.” as you not really being serious about the Independents and Others since they’re not significant as a “side” of their own, and even if they always sided on the D side, it still doesn’t change things).
Well, the obvious alternative that comes to mind hardly does anything in the way of consensus building.
[Consensus – remember that (apparently now outdated) concept? This country was founded on it.]
There’s two immediate alternatives to “both sides”: A) Neither side – I’m pretty sure that’s not what you’re suggesting; B) one side is more (or entirely) responsible.
Option B maybe more satisfying than “both sides”, but think about it. It immediately puts the side being blamed on the defensive and more likely than not, you’ve just managed to shut down useful cross-aisle discussion and at best you’ve got deadlock. At worst, the side you see as being entirely to blame decides your side of the aisle is irrelevant and goes on doing the same thing you objected to because they can. Sound familiar?
You may find “both sides” unpalatable, but at face value it’s something both sides should be able to agree on as a starting point. Regarding Brown’s confirmation, it would appear to me that with only 42 minutes of deliberation, those in the minority party failed to even make a token effort of doing their job of oversight (aside from the realities of the vote, there wasn’t much, if any significant voiced opposition or questioning of Brown’s credentials).
zzyzx
According to NOLA.com, first they’re going to do emergency repairs to the I-10 bridge, then they’re going to have to rebuild it. Price for just rebuilding the bridge is estimated at half a billion. It’s not just homes that need to be repaired. Some of the pumps probably have to be replaced, cleaning up all of the toxic goop that’ll be left when the water is gone won’t be cheap, not to mention rebuilding the breeched levees.