You Can’t Have It Both Ways

You either hand out money willie-nillie in the aftermath of a natural disaster or you keep track of where it’s going and get tarred with the ‘racist, class warrior’ brush.

In the neighborhood President Bush visited right after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government gave $84.5 million to more than 10,000 households. But Census figures show fewer than 8,000 homes existed there at the time.
Now the government wants back a lot of the money it disbursed across the region.
The Federal Emergency Management Administration has determined nearly 70,000 Louisiana households improperly received $309.1 million in grants, and officials acknowledge those numbers are likely to grow.

Can you imagine that! People got money they didn’t rate when the till was open and the dollars flying out like honeybees on their way to fragrant fields.
Oh, well, hell ~ who we kiddin’ here? You get tarred, don’t make no nevermind what you do.

Mayor Ray Nagin told a Senate committee Monday he doesn’t see the will to fix his hurricane-battered city when compared with the billions spent on the war in Iraq.
“I think it’s more class than anything, but there’s racial issues associated with it also,” Nagin said.

Race, schmace. And as for class…what would Nagin know about that anyway? He’s certainly never shown any.
So let’s just leave the lucre levee open…

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Monday that she will ask leaders on Capitol Hill this week to release Louisiana from about $1.7 billion in debt that the state owes to cover the local match for federal recovery grants and repayment of disaster loans.
…Further, Blanco said she will request forgiveness for roughly $1 billion in community disaster loans that were awarded to local governments so they could keep operating in the wake of unprecedented devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Kopplin said the White House traditionally has converted those loans to grants, ostensibly giving disaster-ridden governments free cash for operations.
…While criticizing the rules governing FEMA reimbursements, Blanco announced a pair of initiatives aimed at speeding up the notoriously laggard process of getting federal dollars to local agencies working restore basic services.
…”I think we’re going to have some luck in Congress,” Blanco said. “If we don’t, God help us all.“

…and watch it all drain away. Rules be damned! Accountability be damned! Let’s free ourselves from those fiscal chains of integrity that bind! Waste, fraud and entitlement are New Orleans’ peculiar institutions and who are we to naysay their right to unlimited funds unhampered by unreasonable restraint?
‘Free cash‘ it says? Well, then, free cash it should be!
No one could doubt our good intentions then. Not even the cannibals.

One Response to “You Can’t Have It Both Ways”

1. colin says:

   February 7, 2007 at 5:04 pm

   If Uncle Ray is serious about needing the cash he should invite all the Islamic fundamentalists to move to Nola, cash would pour in, bombs would pour in. 2 birds one stone.
   Who’s this guy Willie Nillie does he live in New Orleans?