Bush and Katrina

There's much in the blogosphere about Bush and Hurricane Katrina. it seems in December of 2001 FEMA listed a Category 5 Hurricane hitting New Orleans was one of the "three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters" that could affect the US (California Earthquake and NY terrorism being the other two. People connect this with Bush in three ways:

1. Budgets have reduced funding in ways to protect New Orleans. The numbers cited are the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is having federal funding reduced a record $71.2 million in 2006. In 2001 they spent $147 million, and it looks like 2005 will be $82 million. But I haven't found a good listing of their total costs and total funding.

This presentation from 2004 shows they want to replace a lock and I think some bridges. The total cost to complete in 2014 is $770 million. In 2003 they needed $23 million and got $15 million. In 2004 they requested $20 million and at least at the time the budget had $7 million.

In this article from 2004 the Corps thinks they could protect New Orleans with a 20 year $1 billion project to raise levees and build floodgates. "Just the study would take four years and cost $4 million, Naomi said, but the money is not in the federal budget for 2005, though the Senate has yet to act."

2. Scientists agree that global warming is making these storms worse, but of course Bush thinks the debate is still out with global warming (and evolution), so the US isn't doing much of anything help reduce it.

3. You know how the first thing the president does in such a situation is to declare a disaster and send out FEMA and the National Guard? Well Bush did just this Sunday though his talk was 3 paragraphs on Katrina and 12 on Iraq. Well people point out that much of the National Guard (people and equipment) is in Iraq and as a result can't help the cleanup effort. And in fitting irony, Louisiana has lost more National Guardsmen in Iraq than any other state except New York.

The bloggers on the right are already accusing the left of acussing Bush of causing the storm. Obviously that's moronic. The above issues are perhaps not slam dunks, but why does it seem like the Bush administration is death by a 1000 cuts. Sitting here now I can't think of a single thing I think he's done right, Not in Iraq, the budget, science, health care, civil rights, education, or foreign affairs. But that's a subject of another post. For now, I just send my support to those affected by the storm.