WSJ: Bush and Katrina

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Bush and Katrina

September 6, 2005; Page A28

(snip)

On this point, Mr. Bush is going to have to recognize the obvious initial failure of the Department of Homeland Security in its first big post-9/11 test. The President created this latest huge federal bureaucracy, against the advice of many of us, and we're still waiting for evidence that it has done anything but reshuffle the Beltway furniture. If FEMA can't now handle the diaspora out of New Orleans to Houston, Baton Rouge and other cities, the political retribution will be fierce.

Notably, the New Orleans mess improved only after the Pentagon got involved. Though the military is normally barred from domestic law enforcement by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, Defense officials have been doing a lot of creative thinking about what they can do and what the public now expects post-September 11.

(snip)

Mr. Bush should name one or more people, in or out of his Administration, to sort through the ideas and avoid what will be the liberal/GOP Congressional impulse to throw money at everything. An alternative would be to name the entire stricken area an enterprise zone for some period of time, which would offer both tax incentives and regulatory waivers to stimulate reinvestment. There's a danger here of tax breaks for floating casinos, but the greater risk is spending $20 billion or more solely on the priorities of local politicians.

Which brings us to Mr. Bush's broader domestic agenda. The President has admirably refused to give up on Social Security, but Katrina makes reform impossible in the near term. The more urgent Presidential priority now is to take steps to keep the U.S. economy growing. Last week's regulatory moves on fuel emissions and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve are already helping on gasoline supplies, and the price shocks are an opportunity to prod Congress to remove obstacles to more oil and natural gas drilling.

(snip)

What's really at stake in the coming months is the Republican claim to be the governing party. That claim has been based in part on the assertion that energetic government doesn't also have to be big government. Mr. Bush's refusal to restrain a free-spending GOP Congress has already undermined the latter, while Katrina is stretching the credibility of the former. Democrats will spend the next year asserting that at least they'll spend tax dollars on levees in New Orleans, rather than Alaskan bridges to nowhere.

(snip)

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112596152336732167,00.html (subscription)

[Carolab]

1. Ahem.

"Notably, the New Orleans mess improved only after the Pentagon got involved. Though the military is normally barred from domestic law enforcement by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, Defense officials have been doing a lot of creative thinking about what they can do and what the public now expects post-September 11."

**********

That goes to the heart of it, alright.

[aquart]

3. WSJ editorial staff--if only Hitler had lived.

HE knew how to run a country.

They're so painfully transparent.

[Skittles]

4. their usual bush-whoring sounds very painful now doesn't it

those bastards better know they have blood on their hands - LOTS OF IT

[aquart]

2. Why does everyone pick on Stevens?

I'm sure plenty of Senators are building bridges to nowhere.