The New Gulf Coast Mafia

[markus]

http://wetbankguide.blogspot.com/2006/01/new-gulf-coast-mafia.html">The New Gulf Coast Mafia

In a piece from New York Times on Baton Rouge GOP Rep. Richard Baker's plan for housing aid in New Orleans, is buried this interesting tidbit:

The passage of the bill has become increasingly important to Louisiana because the state lost out to the greater political power of Mississippi last month when Congress passed a $29 billion aid package for the Gulf states region. The package gave Mississippi about five times as much per household in housing aid as Louisiana received - a testimony to the clout of Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a former Republican National Committee chairman, and Senator Thad Cochran, chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

Yeah, you read that right. Mississippi got five times as much aid per household as Louisiana.

Not surprising. Haley is a man of some influence.

As posted here at the end of September from a September NYT article, Mr. Barbour and his friends have been cashing in on the distress of their neighbors since days after Hurricane Katrina struck.

More on http://wetbankguide.blogspot.com">Wet Bank Guide

[KamaAina]

1. How ironic. The original Mafia is said to have entered the US through N.O.

No doubt the 21st-century version will come up with some excuse for the 5-1 discrepancy, such as only paying for structural damage (mostly in Miss. and lower Plaquemines, La.), rather than flood damage (overwhelmingly N.O. and St. Bernard).

Is there any place to get a breakdown on exactly where this pork, er, I mean badly needed disaster relief :sarcasm: might be going?

I can't wait to see where Wet Bank goes in the coming months, once it starts to emphasize on-the-spot reporting. :bounce: Already I'd have to place you in the top tier of DU writers along with the Plaid Adder and yes, William Pitt himself!

[markus]

2. ReconstructionWatch.org

Whoa. Will Pitt. I"m flattered. And he quoted me out in his SOTU. I'm just flat out floored.

Anyway, the original sources were linked in the first article, which you can get to from The New Gulf Coast Mafia.

A good sight monitoring how Gulf Coast reconstruction in general is going is:

http://www.reconstructionwatch.org/