Editorial: Government continues to add insult to injury (DelCoTimes PA)

[struggle4progress]

The aftermath of the hurricane that ravaged the Gulf Coast, leaving bodies, destroyed homes and businesses in its wake, is now in a second stage. Following a horrible precedent of awarding billion-dollar no-bid contracts in Iraq, the government once again suspended the bidding procedure and enriched its already wealthy friends with 80 percent of the $1.5 billion contracts awarded by FEMA. <snip>

To put this in perspective, Kellogg and friends will be paid $45 million to repair levees in New Orleans and military facilities in the ravaged area. This on the heels of its five-year, no-bid contract to restore Iraqi oil fields (where the company has so far refused to reveal the price tag), and that on the heels of a $7 billion no-bid contract for other issues involving the same oil fields. <snip>

Robert Hammond, president of the New Orleans AFL-CIO, told the St. Petersburg Times in Florida that his union electricians were sent home from a job at an area Air Force base to make room for laborers from Texas. So, Louisiana electricians, already reeling from an economic disaster, lost jobs to out-of-state workers hired by no-bid contractors. <snip>

We live in a culture that supports a corporate mentality where the multi-millionaires at the top of the food chain receive special consideration from the men and women the electorate puts in power. It is always unsettling to witness huge profits on the backs of underpaid or pension-depleted workers, but for the people suffering in the Gulf Coast, it is unconscionable. <snip>

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15337204&BRD=1675&PAG=461&dept_id=18168&rfi=6

[Demit]

1. Good editorial. Thanks for posting it. A "matter of decency" indeed.

[fencesitter]

2. Hmm, Curt Weldon's home-town paper

Wonder if he reads it, when they're not fawning over him anyway.