A new deal of chances for sleaze (Krugman)

[struggle4progress]

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Columnist


Now it begins: America’s biggest relief and recovery program since the New Deal. And the omens aren’t good.

It’s a given that the Bush administration, which tried to turn Iraq into a laboratory for conservative economic policies, will try the same thing on the Gulf Coast. The Heritage Foundation, which has surely been helping Karl Rove develop the administration’s recovery plan, has already published a manifesto on post-Katrina policy. It calls for waivers on environmental rules, the elimination of capital gains taxes and the private ownership of public school buildings in the disaster areas. And if any of the people killed by Katrina, most of them poor, had a net worth of more than $1.5 million, Heritage wants to exempt their heirs from the estate tax. <snip>

President Bush subscribes to a political philosophy that opposes government activism. That’s why he has tried to gut or sell out programs wherever he can. (He still hopes to privatize Social Security, FDR’s biggest legacy.) So even his policy failures don’t bother his strongest supporters. Many conservatives view the inept response to Katrina as a vindication of their lack of faith in government, rather than as a reason to reconsider their faith in Bush. <snip>

That’s why Bush’s promise that he will have “a team of inspectors general reviewing all expenditures” on hurricane relief rings hollow. Whoever these inspectors general are, they’ll be mindful of the fate of Bunnatine Greenhouse, a highly regarded auditor at the Army Corps of Engineers who suddenly got poor performance reviews after she raised questions about Halliburton’s contracts in Iraq. She was demoted late last month. <snip>

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/12717344.htm

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Maybe we should allow the Heritage Foundation to give death

tax waivers for anyone who gets killed in a hurricane. Just think about the demographic shift that would bring as all those Republicans wheel their sickly, older relatives to the coast. Vultures.