Here is an interesting document. This is a report of a subcommitee of the United States House of Representatives. It shows that in Fiscal Year 2003, the budget of the Corps of Engineers was reduced by 10% in comparison to the Fiscal Year 2002 budget. Part of the effective reduction was the implementation of the Shrub's policy that Federal agencies must fund retiree costs from their operating budgets. The House of Representatives is controlled by the Republican Party. Both the Fiscal Year 2002 and 2003 budgets were produced by a majority Republican Congress in negotiation with a Republican administration.
It could prove very interesting to compile a history of funding for Corps of Engineers water resources projects.
It seems that the Fiscal Year 2002 budget for the Corps of Engineers was itself a reduced budget--not by 10% as in 2003, but by 14% . . .
Quote:With 500 military and 37,000 civilian employees and an annual budget exceeding $10 billion, the Corps conducts a vast range of missions, including constructing military facilities for the Army and Air Force, performing environmental restoration on defense installations and operating the Army's civil works program. The Corps also provides engineering assistance after natural disasters, regulates work in the nation's waterways and wetlands, conducts research and development and provides engineering services to 60 other federal agencies. However, the Corps' recent controversies may be catching up with it. In February, President Bush proposed slashing the Corps' civil works budget by 14 percent in fiscal 2002 - from $4.5 billion to $3.9 billion. The budget outline mentioned doubts about the Corps' credibility.
This is from an article at
Government Executive magazine, which, in it's "about us" section, states:
GovExec-dot-com wrote:GovExec.com is government's business news daily and the premier Web site for federal managers and executives. Government Executive in its print incarnation is a biweekly business magazine serving senior executives and managers in the federal government's departments and agencies. Our subscribers are high-ranking civilian and military officials who are responsible for defending the nation and carrying out the many laws that define the government's role in our economy and society.
Government Executive's essential editorial mission is to cover the business of the federal government and its huge departments and agencies - dozens of which dwarf the largest institutions in the private sector. We aspire to serve the people who manage these huge agencies and programs in much the way that Fortune, Forbes, and Business Week serve private-sector managers.
As Alice said, curiouser and curiouser . . .
Quote:If you had done that I'd have been one of the few to counteract the usual half-thinkings of BBB et al.
Ah Sturgis - cheap shot.
I like BBB's "half-thinkings" as you put it. They're really musings. The most interesting posts are the musing/half-thinkings where an idea can be explored. It's the ones that are posted as hard and fast, jaw-jutting conclusions that go nowhere except an interminable fight.
I for one like that style of suggestion so that I can toddle off and do some thinking or musing myself. Sometimes I drive to work thinking of the ideas here. It's quite illuminating.
And as for that et al, well I haven't ready anything remotely interesting by him, he should find a new forum......
I hope it makes some of you feel better about yourselves when you have someone to blame for the misfortune of others. It so easy for the likes of RFK Jr. to blame the Gov's of Ms, Al. and LA for CAUSING THE HURRICANE. It must feel really good for the likes of BBB et.al.. to blame GW for CAUSING THE BREACH.
I'll just bet the thousands who are stranded would feel better knowing you have someone to blame for MOTHER "F"ING NATURE!
Amigo wrote:mysteryman wrote:Amigo wrote:Your right he really doesn't care what we think. I hope he let's real Americans handle the trouble in Louisiana. He f**ks up everything he touches.Thats a fact
I will ask again...
How much money did the Clinton admin allocate to strengthen,and raise the height of the NO levees?
This disaster has been predicted for at least 30 years.
If I researched this and it turned out Clinton did actually allocate money for this what would you say then? We'll use your answer to setantas question as an example.
Now we will ask again..... How long will it take to get your right wing bu****it together this time?
I don't think anyone is blaming nature on Bush. What some are saying and I agree is that through a wrong headed decision to send our country to war for no good reason, we have less money and resources (national guard...) than we would have had if we had not made the decision to go to war with Iraq for no good reason and made other wrong headed decisions that effected where money is spent.
What are we going to do if we have another disaster or another terrorist attack? We can't just keep giving so much to one cause and place.
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/publications/local_costs_of_the_iraq_war.html
Quote:Thursday, 26 May 2005
Find out how much the Iraq War is costing taxpayers in your town, city or county. State and national information is also included. The following table breaks down the cost of the Iraq War for various towns, cities and counties across the U.S. The breakdown is based on a total cost of $204.6 billion estimated by the National Priorities Project by analyzing the legislation for the four allocations made by Congress. The first appropriated about $54 billion for the Iraq War (passed in April 2003), the second $71 billion (November 2003), the third $21.55 billion (June 2004), and the fourth $58 billion in Iraq War-related spending.
The state-level costs are computed based on how much each state contributes in tax revenues, according to IRS data. The local-level costs are based on the state costs, and on relative population and incomes in each location. These numbers were updated for the latest IRS data in May, 2005.
BBB
I predict, on the A2K record here, that Bush's policies directly and indirectly will cause the death of more people than were killed in the 9/11 attack and greater financial loss that the desctruction of the world trade center, and the weakening of the jobs and economy in the tri-state area greater than the losses suffered in the 9/11 attack. My prediction not only covers the tri-state area, but the entire U.S. as the loss of infrastructer in a critical shipping area causes higher prices and inflation.
Now, you republican chauvinists can predict how Bush's policies have made us safer in the motherland, improved our economy, and made us stronger abroad. Be my guest---if you dare!
BBB
Re: BBB
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:I predict, on the A2K record here, that Bush's policies directly and indirectly will cause the death of more people than were killed in the 9/11 attack and greater financial loss that the desctruction of the world trade center, and the weakening of the jobs and economy in the tri-state area greater than the losses suffered in the 9/11 attack. My prediction not only covers the tri-state area, but the entire U.S. as the loss of infrastructer in a critical shipping area causes higher prices and inflation.
Now, you republican chauvinists can predict how Bush's policies have made us safer in the motherland, improved our economy, and made us stronger abroad. Be my guest---if you dare!
BBB
I predict some nice young men in white suits will come for you and take you to a really nice place to spend the rest of your cynical days.
Re: BBB
woiyo wrote:BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:I predict, on the A2K record here, that Bush's policies directly and indirectly will cause the death of more people than were killed in the 9/11 attack and greater financial loss that the desctruction of the world trade center, and the weakening of the jobs and economy in the tri-state area greater than the losses suffered in the 9/11 attack. My prediction not only covers the tri-state area, but the entire U.S. as the loss of infrastructer in a critical shipping area causes higher prices and inflation.
Now, you republican chauvinists can predict how Bush's policies have made us safer in the motherland, improved our economy, and made us stronger abroad. Be my guest---if you dare!
BBB
I predict some nice young men in white suits will come for you and take you to a really nice place to spend the rest of your cynical days.
Don't hold your breath. You're already turning blue.
I'm not predicting as cynical. I'm just not wearing rose colored blinders like the Bush chauvinists.
BBB
BBB
In case any of you don't know why I use the term Bush chauvinists, read the following definition:
"Chauvinism is extreme and unreasoning partisanship on behalf of a group to which one belongs, especially when the partisanship includes malice and hatred towards a rival group. The term is derived from Nicolas Chauvin, a soldier under Napoleon Bonaparte, due to his fanatical zeal for his Emperor."
BBB
Apparently BBB is not the only one who thinks so
Apparently, BBB is not the only one who thinks Bush is responsible for some of the hurricane tragedy. More and more of the Media are asking the same questions. ---BBB
Report: Bush And The New Orleans Levee Disaster Linked To His Tax Cuts, His Iraq War, Editors and Publishers - 9/1/05
Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters may still keep rising in New Orleans late on Tuesday. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.
New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.
Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
Also that June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:
"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."... (more
Opinion: Are We Angry Enough Yet?
Jerry Politex
Bush Watch
9/1/05
Are we angry enough yet?
First, Bush took us from a surplus to the most massive deficit in our history, one that incereases with each passing day, one that not even your grandchildren will be able to pay off, one that will be used as an excuse to gut social programs and seriously weaken the country's infrstructure. And, while his corporate masters plunder the country, poverty has increased each year he's been in office,increasing the gap between rich and poor, and turning the middle class into wage slaves too frightened to voice any oppositon for fear of losing their jobs.
Second, Bush took us into a war in Iraq that has sucked more money from our government, while giving it to his corporate friends involved in the privatization of the military, the servicing of his war machine, and the creation of his weapons. In so doing, we find that his reasons for invading Iraq, the reasons given to Congress and the UN, the reasons he gave to the American people prior to the invasion, were lies. Since then, we've learned that his fallback reasons for invading Iraq, the reasons he gave after the invasion, were also lies. In short, Bush has yet to give us one reason for his invasion of Iraq that has not turned out to be a lie.
Third, with the mayor's predictions of hundreds, if not thousands of deaths, massive destruction of home and infrastructure, and the Governor's call to abandon New Orleans because the inadequate levee system broke down and the city is now under water, we learn that in early 2004, as the cost of Iraq grew and the tax revenues fell, the levees protecting New Orleans from flooding remained unfinishd, even though by 1995 the Army Corps of Engineers had heeded the dire warnings and had been working to stave off disaster. Nevertheless, under Bush federal funding needed to strengthen the levees in New Orleans "dropped to a trickle" with at least $250 million in work needed to be done.
"In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding," New Orleans City Business reports. "The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded....Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now." While Bush slashed funding to protect New Orleans from flooding, he continued to talk about more tax cuts for corporations, more estate tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, more reckless schemes to provide additional tax cuts and rewards for his wealthy friends and corporate masters.
How many deaths are acceptable? How much money rape can we stand?
How many lies are we willing listen to?
Are we angry enough yet?
President's Response to Katrina--and Lack of Preparations
Editorials Raise Questions About President's Response to Katrina--and Lack of Preparations
By Editors & Publishers Staff
Published: August 31, 2005
NEW YORK As the truth sinks in--this is the worst natural disaster in the nation's history--editorials in a wide range of newspapers have now raised critical issues about the lack of preparation, the effects of so many National Guard sent to Iraq, and the response of President Bush to the tragedy this week.
One of the most stalwart conservative newspapers in the nation, the Union Leader of New Hampshire, today blasted Bush's response to the great Gulf Coast hurricane.
"A better leader would have flown straight to the disaster zone and announced the immediate mobilization of every available resource to rescue the stranded, find and bury the dead, and keep the survivors fed, clothed, sheltered and free of disease," the editorial declared. "The cool, confident, intuitive leadership Bush exhibited in his first term, particularly in the months immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, has vanished. In its place is a diffident detachment unsuitable for the leader of a nation facing war, natural disaster and economic uncertainty.
"Wherever the old George W. Bush went, we sure wish we had him back."
On Thursday, after the president returned to Washington, The New York Times mocked his speech: "George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end."
The Washington Post, meanwhile, called for a close look at what should have been done differently, saying "it will be extremely important to better understand the causes of this long-predicted disaster and to determine what, if anything, could have prevented it. This administration has consistently played down the possibility of environmental disaster, in Louisiana and everywhere else. The president's most recent budgets have actually proposed reducing funding for flood prevention in the New Orleans area, and the administration has long ignored Louisiana politicians' requests for more help in protecting their fragile coast, the destruction of which meant there was little to slow down the hurricane before it hit the city.
"It is inappropriate to 'blame' anyone for a natural disaster. But given how frequently the impact of this one was predicted, and given the scale of the economic and human catastrophe that has resulted, it is certainly fair to ask questions about disaster preparations. Congress, when it returns, should rise above the blame game and instead probe the state of the nation's preparation for handling major natural catastrophes, particularly those that threaten crucial regions of the country."
The Albuquerque (N.M.) Tribune asked: "Like the National Guard, is FEMA itself being stretched too thin by the number and increasing intensity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires? That's not to mention the potential for earthquakes, including the so-called 'Big One' in California."
BBB
FEMA just announced it is no longer doing rescue operations in New Orleans due to violence making it not safe for FEMA staff to continue.
Are those thousands of people going to die because we don't have enough armed troops to control the situation and make it safe for people to be rescued?
BBB
BBB
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:
FEMA just announced it is no longer doing rescue operations in New Orleans due to violence making it not safe for FEMA staff to continue.
Are those thousands of people going to die because we don't have enough armed troops to control the situation and make it safe for people to be rescued?
BBB
Apparently the violence is being caused around the Superdome when only one of the 500 busses Texas promised to take victims to Huston. No others busses have shown up. People are near to rioting.
What a mess!
BBB
BBB
New Orleans needs to be placed under Martial Law with thousands of boots on the ground troops to keep the peace so rescue and humanitarian aid workers can help the victims.
Why isn't this happening? Is it because so many National Guard troops are fighting in Iraq?
BBB
open letter to President Bush
Mr. President,
Stay the hell out of the hurricane disaster area!
The efforts to save peoples lives don't need to be diverted by one of your political photo-op trips to the areas.
Do us a favor. Rear the newspapers. Watch CNN and CSNBC if you want to know what is going on. Feed your dog. Ride your bike. Take another vacation. Reread the My Goat book.
You've already seen the scope of the devastation from the safety of Airforce One. Don't do anything to get in the way of the rescue operations. You've already done enough to make it worse!
Sincerely,
BumbleBeeBoogie, U.S. Citizen
BBB
Ssomeone said it would give the victims hope if President Bush visited the areas.
My response is BULL CRAP!
Normally I would agree with the hope theory. But for Bush to visit the sites it will take enormous amounts of money to get him there, to provide for his security with enormous staff involvement at the local level, and will divert efforts from rescue and aid away from the people who need it to his political needs. I'd rather the money be spent on the victims and the rescue efforts than on a Bush photo-op.
The people in dire straits have no TV, radio, etc. to hear or watch what Bush has to say. They could care a rats ass whether Bush is among them. What they want to see are rescue helicopters and boats, troops on the ground, care givers, rescuers, feeders with fresh water, places to sleep, etc. Bush's presence is not relevant to their needs. He would only get in the way of the people who can help.
BBB
Politicicing Katrina: As Loathsome as it Gets
While I agree fully with Daley's sentiments, I'm confident the Loathsome Scale hasn't reached anywhere near its peak readings yet - I fully expect the tradition established at Paul Wellstone's memorial service to be the Democrats' driving force in the coming months. The Republicans couldn't have asked for a better gift.
Great, great job, Democrats, and
PLEASE, PLEASE keep it up.
