We need to do a LTTE campaign, re: federal budget cuts to NO levees

[deutsey]

The corporate media (surprise surprise) are not saying much, if anything, about how Bush's budget cuts prevented NO from properly building up its levees.

Here's something on Commondreams: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0831-04.htm

Snip

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Snip

The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."

Local officials are now saying, the article reported, that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection, including building up levees and repairing barrier islands, "the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be."

[Wilber_Stool]

1. Hears a long one posted yesterday.

"Over the past three-and-one-half years, FEMA has gone from being a model agency to being one where funds are being misspent, employee morale has fallen, and our nation's emergency management capability is being eroded," he wrote. "Our professional staff are being systematically replaced by politically connected novices and contractors."

Very good read.

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-28/cover_story.html

[slor]

2. That is a good article...

but the media is not presenting the chimp's failure at all, it seems.

[ladjf]

3. The Chimp and the media are the same entity. Its as simple as

that.