NYT Editorial: "Exploiting Katrina" - Neocons using excuse to wreak havoc

[Nothing Without Hope]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/03/opinion/03mon2.html?th&emc=th
(NOT TIMES SELECT - AVAILABLE FREE)
NYT Editorial

Exploiting Katrina

Published: October 3, 2005

It was almost inevitable that we would see every kind of legislative lunacy after Katrina, proposed in the name of accelerating the cleanup in New Orleans, improving the nation's energy security or achieving other worthy objectives. And so we have: Congress has used Katrina as cover for ideas that could never stand on their own and for a remarkably brazen raid on the public treasury and environmental protections.

Take, for example, Richard Pombo, the chairman of the House Resources Committee, who is proposing to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, allow states to opt out of a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling, and suspend judicial and administrative reviews of federal decisions to open public lands for oil and gas leasing. This is the same Richard Pombo who proposed last week - joking, he said - to sell off a few lesser-known national parks if money from the Arctic refuge was not forthcoming.

Then there is Joe Barton, the Texas Republican who, ostensibly to increase fuel supplies, rammed a bill through the House energy committee that would ease clean air restrictions on refineries and drive a final nail in the coffin of New Source Review, a useful law the administration has been trying to kill for years. The law requires older industrial facilities to install modern pollution controls, and Mr. Barton's bill would remove not only refineries but hundreds of coal-fired power plants from its reach.

Similar mischief is afoot in the Senate, where James Inhofe, the ferociously anti-regulatory Oklahoma Republican who runs the environment committee, would suspend for up to 18 months any environmental law that in his view stands in the way of post-hurricane reconstruction.

(snip)

The article goes on to describe other egregious abuses, such as the $250 BILLION asked for by the Louisiana delegation on top of the existing $62.3 billion aid. This would amount to over $50,000 per Louisiana resident. The proposal would also destroy important environmental protections and push enormous sums into "projects that seem to have more to do with the delegation's political ambitions than with flood control and the intelligent restoration of the Louisiana Delta."

Feeding time at the trough. And we know who would be the LAST people to benefit from all this gorging - those who need aid the most.

Indeed, in an op/ed in the same issue, Paul Krugman describes the stupid, ideological policies that are assuring that the health care and housing policies for Katrina evacuees make them miserable and don't work - after all, the neocons don't want any toeholds for people who might dare to ask for universal health care or workable housing vouchers for the needy. All social programs are anathema to the Bush Administration - unless you count no-bid multimillion dollar contracts to cronies.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4955950&mesg_id=4955950
thread title: NYT/Krugman: “Miserable by Design” – Bad aid policies for Katrina evacuees

These endlessly greedy, murderous criminals have GOT to go.

[jus_the_facts]

1. doesn't seem to be too important to keep payin' attention....

....thanks again for your passion in bringing this up..kicked and nominated. :hug:

[jus_the_facts]

2. .

[Moderator]

3. kick

:kick:

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

6. kick - this article should be bookmarked and referred to in discussions

of the neocons profiteering from Katrina at the expense of taxpayers AND the people who will not receive the aid they need.