Abolish irresponsible, negligent Orleans Levee Board

Finally, the rest of the country (or at least those who haven’t read this cyber-space in the past couple of months) is finding out about the misplaced priorities of the Orleans Levee Board. No account of the reasons why Hurricane Katrina’s damage exceeded what should have been can be complete without mentioning it, or the people responsible for it.

We know that in the past several years the board has engaged in building all sorts of infrastructure with little of that actually being levees and floodwalls. We know that in the past few years it has directed resources towards a senseless investigation of a radio talk show host. We know that in the past year it has tried to raid taxpayers to give a huge salary increase for a part-time job to the person mainly responsible for the above.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that the board would prefer to subsidize casinos and marinas and to build fountains rather than more substantial things, especially given the political composition of the board (and these excerpts give a good idea of the jockeying that typically goes on that places a premium on politics rather than performance). And, ultimately, it goes back to the officials who have appointed members of the board over the past decade and more, who serve at the will of the governor and mayor of New Orleans – Govs. Prisoner 03128-095, Mike Foster, Kathleen Blanco, and Mayors Marc Morial and Ray Nagin (although the mayors’ hands are a bit forced – one member must come from the City Council).

Jefferson, with federal help, loots his own home

While almost every elected Democrat around the New Orleans area has been blasting away at everybody but themselves to assess the problems prior to and after Hurricane Katrina (to deflect criticism from themselves), practically no rhetoric about relief operations has come from the flooded city’s Member of Congress, Democrat Rep. William Jefferson. Until now.

It turns out that Jefferson commandeered National Guard forces and looted his own home. He came well-prepared: first just one truck and a few soldiers, soon followed by another, with a helicopter visit in-between. It’s possible that these forces, utilized by Jefferson over the span of a couple of hours, actually might have been used to rescue desperate people and restore order during that interval, but given the federal government’s incompetence under Pres. George W. Bush according to Jefferson’s co-partisans, surely this was the best use of these resources.

It’s also possible that Jefferson looted his own residence because he wanted to grab sensitive materials before somebody else from the federal government got a chance to loot them first. He said he removed nothing relevant to this investigation into his alleged corruption and honesty. Guess that settles that.

So know we know why Jefferson’s only real public statements about the disaster have come on the floor of Congress and have been lauding the government response. After all, it did provide him the means by which to carry out his Operation Recover Hope. And, he might as well take advantage of his position while he has it, because if the government doesn’t convict him first or his district doesn’t disappear, what few waterlogged voters will be left in his district in 2006 may not find his mission during the height of the crisis all that amusing.

Some Louisiana elected officials have looked like statesmen

It’s clear that Dallasite New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco, through their ill-preparation and lack of execution, increased the misery wrought by Hurricane Katrina, and that Sen. Mary Landrieu has set new standards in pots calling kettles black through her criticism of Pres. George W. Bush and his administration that she deserves much more than they. But how have other elected officials other than these Democrats who could have done things to reduce these miseries reacted?

So far, while Republican Sen. David Vitter hasn’t been criticizing the Bush Administration specifically, he’s been handing out failing grades left and right to everybody but himself. But he needs stop chunking stones out of his somewhat-glass house before he politically damages himself because, like Landrieu, having been in Congress for many years he is open to the charge that he did too little to steer federal dollars to worthy flood-control projects. Unlike Landrieu, at least, he didn’t use influence to encourage money to go to marginal projects.

Democrat local and state officials for the most part have looked or made themselves look foolish over the incident (who can forget Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard’s meltdown as he blamed the federal government for everything, accusing it of murder, and praised Blanco to the sky, while interviewed right after him Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour painted a completely different picture of the federal effort – same federal government, different states, different results, so how could the federal government be mainly responsible for Jefferson Parish and Louisiana government’s inadequacies?). But one Democrat who has looked good is U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon.

Melancon, a freshman whose district bore the direct brunt of the storm, doesn’t carry the baggage that Landrieu and Vitter potentially do. He has been low-key in his criticisms and, unlike practically every other Democrat, has not sounded shrill, out-of-control, or even deranged in assessing the situation. Given his tenuous chances for reelection, he has to be like this.

(I’m not counting Rep. William Jefferson, who has been inaudible even though his district is ground zero for the economic devastation wrought by Katrina, no doubt because he has had a political/legal catastrophe of his own that apparently has gotten his tongue concerning all other matters.)

However, the official standing to gain the most political mileage in the aftermath of the hurricane is Republican U.S. Rep. Bobby Jindal. His district got hit with almost the full fury of Katrina, and he lost his (recently-acquired) home. He has offered both measured praise to the federal government and mild rebukes to bureaucracy (everybody’s favorite whipping boy) at all levels while trying to stay focused on what to do next. In all he has come off looking best and, also a Congressional freshman, cannot get blamed for any sins of emergency preparedness committed prior to this year.

This would not be good news for anybody interested in the job Jindal is said still to covet, the governorship. Now that Blanco’s words and actions have provided immeasurable fodder for potential 2007 opponents, and he perhaps is the only politician who has appeared competent and statemanslike throughout this trying period, a replay of that election as of today (if it were physically possible) would make him the clear winner, even if others such as Vitter also ran for the job.

Politics conditions Blanco actions before and after Katrina

I suppose Gov. Kathleen Blanco technically is correct when she asserts that state officials had a “well-thought plan” for dealing with Hurricane Katrina. It’s her reelection plan, and it’s kicked into high gear now by her defending Pres. George W. Bush.

But as far as any plan to deal with the tangible, rather than political, effects of Katrina, no “well-thought out plan” existed, according to one expert. Florida’s emergency operations chief, Craig Fugate said “A plan should not be some requirement. It should truly reflect what your real needs are, and what your real resources are." Louisiana's plan doesn't do either.”

The best Blanco’s team could come with was a vague document with stunning observations such as “The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating (emphasis added)” and “the evacuation of over a million people from the Southeast Region could overwhelm normally available shelter resources.” You don’t say? It would have been nice for the document to include a solution to this, but it doesn’t.

Landrieu continues to embarrass herself, turn state voters off

National Democrats over the past decade have adopted issue preferences and rhetoric to match which has made them the minority party in this country. Now, with the help of their Louisiana stooge Sen. Mary Landrieu, they appear bound to do the same to the party in Louisiana.

Landrieu has continued a laughable offensive to try to salvage state Democrats’ poor planning and execution of hurricane emergency policies. Her first effort was to attempt to argue that the federal government, Pres. George W. Bush in particular, had carelessly underfunded flood protection measures relative to New Orleans. But she was made to look stupid when it was revealed that the Bush Administration had sent more money to the state for these projects than did his Democrat predecessor, the Louisiana got more such money than any other state, that the Democrat-run state itself asked to divert monies from projects that would have made New Orleans safer (but not impregnable to flooding), and that Landrieu herself had used her influence to enable the diversion of money that could have been used on those projects.

So now she’s trying to blame the federal government’s, and by implication the Bush Administration’s, response to the disaster – an effort already revealed to have been compromised by the poor planning and lack of order courtesy of local and state actions. Why does she continue to embarrass herself on a national scale?

Part of it is national Democrats desperately looking for some kind of issue to use against Bush and the Republicans for a host of purposes – 2006 midterm Congressional elections, to stop the change of composition of the U.S. Supreme Court away from justices favoring the liberal agenda, and perhaps others. Since national Democrats repeatedly have had the electorate defeat their bankrupted, both in philosophy and in practice, agenda, they’ll grasp at any straw.

But Landrieu also no doubt is looking towards her 2008 reelection bid. Already perhaps the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate, she’s looking to throw some red meat to the moonbat Left in Louisiana, whose support she must have to survive in office. Especially now that the Green Party, among others, can have its candidates appear on ballots with its label, this would make it harder to win outright the primary or to count on them voting for her in the general election runoff.

Because, as her Senate colleague Barack Obama demonstrated, Democrats also are trying to bring (as they do on practically every issue) race into the debate, this attack additionally attempts to shore up her credentials with the voting bloc most abused by state Democrats, blacks. However, Landrieu and her handlers don’t seem to understand that this tactic may well backfire.

The bloc to which she appealed in the wake of Katrina may in significant numbers already have fled the state never to return, leaving disproportionately those who do not participate much in politics. And far more remaining will be others sickened by the hypocrisy and opportunism of her attacks who might otherwise have voted for her.

Of course, the Left has shown repeatedly that it does not get it, that using its emotional arguments bereft of any real facts or logic (because it loses on both accounts) cannot win. Despite that, Landrieu has been able to salvage two close Senate elections. But as she digs a hole deeper and deeper with this rhetoric, three-in-a-row looks less and less likely.

Democrats protest too much so to hide their Katrina-related incompetencies

A constant refrain we hear from many Louisiana public officials, liberals and Democrats, and their media accomplices (sometimes all three together) is the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans was made worse, both before and after, by Pres. George W. Bush and his administration’s reactions. Obviously, these people either don’t know or ignore the relevant facts showing that on both accounts the real causes hit a lot closer to home.

Before the storm struck, Bush and the federal government gets blamed for not spending enough money, indeed for suggesting cuts, in requests to improve the levees around the city, perhaps as a consequence to fund the war in Iraq, or by tax cuts. But in fact, not only could any amount of money spent during Bush’s term not have improved the situation, enough money to have significantly strengthened the levees was given to local authorities who then chose to spend it on other priorities.

With advancements in technology, only in the past decade or so has there been a realization that the existing levees would come up short relative to a huge hurricane and that it would take decades to fully complete an adequate levee system – one which in fact, given the vagaries of Mother Nature, might never be good enough. However, horribly, it seems that the money and the time once had been available – except that the governing authorities involved, the Orleans Parish Levee District and the state, diverted the funds to other priorities.

Katrina may convert New Orleans into Mexico

One unpredictable impact of Hurricane Katrina will be how the demographic changes it brings, centered in New Orleans, will affect Louisiana’s economy.

For over a century, the city has been in decline. It incompletely made the transition from a commercial capital in an agricultural-driven economy to the same status in an industrial-driven economy, and would have failed to do so without the oil and shipping industries. But when much of the oil industry fled starting 20 years ago, reducing the need for shipping as a consequence, and the city failed to make the transition into the information-driven economy, the steady ride downwards took on more the characteristics of falling off a cliff.

The main source of this decline came from a creeping political liberalism and populism which, ironically, penetrated the city later than the rest of the state but which today retards it more than anywhere else in the state. The New Orleans Ring political machine resisted the socialism of Gov. Huey Long past any other area of the state because it was the power he supplanted.

It then became exasperated by a series of mayors more interested in wealth redistribution, to both the “disadvantaged” and their own cronies, beginning with probably the worst, Bob Maestri, but fortunately followed by two relative reformists, deLesseps “Chep” Morrison and Vic Schiro. However, starting with Maurice “Moon” Landrieu, whose grandest economic idea was to build a storm shelter for uncivilized behavior, things began sliding backwards progressively with Ernest “Dutch” Morial and his son Marc Morial sandwiching the reign on the benign but un-visionary Sidney Barthelemy. (Many had high hopes for current mayor C. Ray Nagin, but his performance relative to the disaster ought to snuff those out pretty quickly. Also worth noting – all were Democrats and, beginning with Dutch Morial in 1978, all were black)

So, for the better part of 35 years, New Orleans has had political leadership that, if not outright corrupt, has been particularly ill-suited to bring development to New Orleans in the modern economy. This has created a city whose population continues to decline dramatically and which disproportionately leaves poorer and higher proportions of blacks in it.

In one respect, Katrina may cause New Orleans to become akin to Mexico, exporting poor people away from an environment that does not hold out much promise for economic development. Those who got out showed a determination not unlike that of illegal aliens (and, in fact, probably faced more hurdles than the typical border-crosser given our lax efforts to protect our southern border).

But while one might be tempted to regard this as a refreshing thing (getting the disproportionate number of the poor out who heavily use government services as a result of their poverty), in fact it probably acts as a curse. It was the mainly the most infirm, most unskilled, and most criminal element that did not leave, who are the greatest burden on government and taxpayers. Worse, joining the more-motivated poor who now reside in places where they can do better, a number of more productive citizens who stayed because of certain attachments, with those attachments now gone, also will never return.

(As a case in point, a friend of mine with an Ivy League degree and an advanced degree had just moved to the city to work in order that he and his wife be closer to her family. Her family lost most everything. Now, he reports they are unlikely to return and will head back east.)

These factors complicate the affirmative answering of the question whether New Orleans can even come close to its pre-Katrina semi-glory, much less reverse its decline. With now even the tourism prop somewhat knocked out from under it, a population disproportionately depleted of its more-capable citizens, and a city and state whose political leadership has had a hard time of mastering concepts which have led to growth elsewhere, New Orleans may continue not just to export it citizens as if it was Mexico, but soon also to look more than just politically like Mexico than the U.S.

Landrieu rhetoric hides her inability to deliver for Louisiana

Sen. Mary Landrieu’s credibility took another hit when, after first criticizing the presidential administration of George W. Bush, she then threatened him, and people in general who criticized New Orleans police or sheriffs, with physical violence.

Granted, no level of government has distinguished itself in response to the crisis (in part man-made by state and local government) provoked by Hurricane Katrina, but that’s the nature of government. It’s inefficient, the nonprofit sector does better and, because it is driven by political rather than market forces, it will let you down a lot. But to blame Pres. Bush yet ignore her own actions simply is dishonest.

We know where the real blame is to be laid if you’re going to assign, and primarily it doesn’t rest with the federal government. But if you are going to blame the federal government, it is disingenuous to declare one official as culpable when your own actions leave you open to the same charge.

Yes, the federal government, under both Republican Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton should have made a greater commitment to flood protection because the Democrat state and local governments were abdicating their responsibility. Yes, the federal response could have been quicker, and may well would have been had Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin been more competent and less partisan.

But where was Landrieu in all of this? If both the Clinton and Bush Administrations were assigning upgrading of levees a low priority, why didn’t she raise their consciousnesses, having 9 years in office to do so? If she were a really effective senator for Louisiana, she would have succeeded in this task and in the last week she would have provided leadership to have cajoled the obstinate Blanco into accepting federal assistance earlier.

I’ve criticized some state officials here. It’s not the New Orleans Police (whose leaders failed them and drove some to desperate measures) or any sheriffs, but, Sen. Landrieu, go ahead if you like, punch me. Punch me like you’ve used the state and citizens of Louisiana as a punching bag for the past 9 years as our senator. Just in the past couple of years, you’ve voted to support abortion, to increase government spending, against tax cuts, to use taxpayer dollars to support abortion, to rescind tax cuts, to discontinue welfare reform, and against a qualified black nominee to the federal courts. And what have you done exactly to help this state, besides make partisan attacks to hide the fact you’d rather follow an ideological agenda (and try to make excuses for your brother Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu’s tepid response to the crisis and your father Moon Landrieu’s reign as New Orleans mayor which began to city’s slide into ungovernability) than do what’s good for the state?

So, take a swing at me. You can’t hurt me worse than what you’ve already done to this state, and the dishonor you bring it with your outrageous remarks.

Lots of fiscal pain ahead for Louisiana in Katrina's wake

Around a good part of Louisiana, a week ago one could never have known that Hurricane Katrina and its aftereffects dealt a massive blow to the state, as the sun shone and in many parts about life seemed fairly normal. Just how badly will become reflected in state finances for fiscal year 2005-06, and that impact will be felt far and wide, and probably into succeeding years.

The grim fact is the greater New Orleans area has roughly one-third the state’s population and perhaps an even greater share of total state economic activity. This is because the area is home to two high-volume, high-dollar activities disproportionate to the rest of the state, oil and tourism.

There will be some displacement, of course. Some economic activity will flow to other Louisiana cities, Baton Rouge in particular. Higher gas prices will boost severance tax collections a little (even as the reduced volume does the opposite). And with the federal government pledging already $10.5 billion for rebuilding, that (maybe half; we do have to share with Mississippi) is money entering the economy which likely never would have come this way (as are insurance payoff dollars, estimated in the area of $26 billion of which almost 80 percent should come to Louisiana). But the negatives are going to outweigh the positives by far.

We can estimate that 40 percent of sales taxes, severance taxes, alcohol and beer taxes, auto rental taxes, and individual and corporate income get generated through the area. One-third of all of the remaining kinds of taxes and other forms of revenue tied to economic activity we can estimate come from the area as well. And, of course, it generates 100 percent of the land-based casino receipts

Now (and this is being optimistic; for example, do we really think the land-based casino can earn half of what it was projected to?) let’s cut these totals in half for the 2005-06 cycle. Thus, the state may expect only 80 percent of its anticipated revenues in the areas of sales taxes, alcohol and beer taxes, auto rental taxes, and individual and corporate income (let’s move severance taxes to the other category, given higher prices), and only 83 1/3 percent of anticipated revenues from other sources. (A few small revenue sources should not be affected by the disaster, such as interest earnings.)

This leaves the state with a shocking $1.625 billion loss in anticipated revenues for the next year, almost 9 percent of projected revenues for a budget which we hear every year is short on “needs.” Of course, state expenditures will go down because it won’t be making ordinary expenditures particularly around New Orleans and which ones it will be making now will be subsidized by the federal government. Again, though, some of the expenditures (health care, welfare, etc.) will get displaced just as revenues did. And even new ones may get created.

One could argue the state could draw substantial tax revenues from the $25.5 billion or so federal and insurance money coming in. Assuming it all comes in over the next ten months and the state grabs 4 percent of it (sales tax rate on many items; again, this scenario is optimistic), it’s not far fetched to surmise that the fiscal year 2005-06 budget will end up half a billion dollars in the hole.

Your guess is as good as mine where that money will come from, but I can tell you there will be no educator pay raises, no new initiatives, nor even expansions in practically every state program. Indeed, we are likely to see cuts.

So let’s try looking on the bright side. Maybe this looming economic crisis, of a magnitude the state never before has realized, finally will spur long-needed reform efforts. Simple spending priority alterations such as in the way long-term health care is managed (transferring dollars from institutional to community-based care) and elimination of inefficient uses of state monies such as the notorious Urban and Rural (slush) Funds may come about. Hopefully, other efficiencies may be squeezed from a bloated government.

(Keep in mind that this is an optimistic scenario. Not only must reformers grapple with a political culture that thrives on handouts rather than responsibility, but a lot must go right in the rebuilding process. For example, basically there is now no highway approach from the east to New Orleans. Until this is fixed, economic activity will be severely affected.)

Still, these together would probably save only about $125 million a year. Even if in the short run much of the state will see an increase in economic activity, do not be fooled. The huge hole left in Louisiana’s economy will provide plenty of pain for all taxpayers and producers of wealth and, worst of all, a nontrivial portion of this population will choose to do what many other of their brethren have in recent years – leave the state, aggravating matters even more.

Nagin's failure demands new leadership to rebuild New Orleans

It looks like New Orleans is getting back to some semblance of order after the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Good form asks that blame for the things that went wrong not be apportioned until the situation absolutely has stabilized, but good sense demands that, with so many lives and the economic health of the state on the line, that the roadblocks to success be removed.

In a previous post I mused that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin politically may have gotten a break with his city falling into disaster, that he could evoke sympathy. That was before we knew how extensively Nagin had shirked his responsibility to the city and then tried to blame others for it.

Nagin’s failure to competently discharge his duty began long before the Katrina near-miss cracked levees in Orleans Parish. He appeared not to take seriously disaster preparation even though he has been in office over two years. In retrospect, his plan seemed to be this:

1. Tell everybody to evacuate
2. Whoever doesn’t, get city buses to pick them up and take them to shelters, the primary one being the Superdome
3. When it was over, rescue who needs to be rescued using all public safety forces while pleading for help

It was a plan horribly flawed from the start:

Why did Nagin give an evacuation order only hours before state police would go off the job and allow chaos that slowed the process, as well as not give other enough time or impetus to leave? Shouldn’t he have done so sooner, or at least coordinated efforts with the state police? Granted, people should take their own fates in their own hands, but surely Nagin knew even a brush by the storm would cause huge problems – after all, he was in planning sessions last year that emphasized this. It was obvious to the thousands already fleeing a day before his call at the very least a brush was coming. This late call also impeded buses being rounded up to take those remaining behind away and/or to shelters.

Why did Nagin not ensure that evacuation centers were prepared to handle such a crisis? Instead of pre-stocking them with ample emergency supplies, they had next to nothing. Their plan just seemed to be to stuff as many people as possible into the Superdome and other places with next to no resources and expect them to wait there days with nothing. As SMC’s regional manager, with responsibility for the Superdome, said, “We can make things very nice for 75,000 people for four hours. But we aren't set up to really accommodate 8,000 for four days.” (Then, of course, holes got made in the roof by the storm, which begins to suggest state culpability as well.)

Why did Nagin fail to create the conditions to allow for assistance to be rendered, for at least two days? He should have known, given the levels of crime and Carnival ethos in the city that the second police were told not to, in a word, police, that looting and violence would break out. Nagin’s excuse was the police were to be engaged in rescue operations and that he could understand if people wanted to take food, and seemed genuinely surprised other kinds of looting would take place. Meanwhile, the violence created impeded help from outside. (Of course, had Nagin ensured that the city had planned ahead, it would have had food in shelters, and firemen and medics could have pointed people to and assisted them in getting to these locations while police kept order.)

For three days, Nagin ran around like a chicken with its head cut off, watching his plan fail, until he decided to move on to his Plan B – blame everybody else, especially Pres. George W. Bush. Which perhaps makes us understand why his policies did so little to have the city prepared for the crisis and to cope with it afterward – as is typical with the liberalism/populism that infuses the political culture of this state, especially in New Orleans, he abdicated responsibility and stuck his hand out waiting for somebody else to take charge and give him something.

The task of rebuilding New Orleans will be long and arduous, and the area and state cannot waste a moment in doing so. It requires wisdom and leadership that Nagin has shown us he does not possess. The grownups from the federal government seem to be in charge of the situation now, so if Nagin could mature for just one moment he can do what he must in order to maximize the city’s chances of recovery – resign as mayor.