Religion of Peace

Anybody care to take a guess at what religion the perpetrators of this crime identify with?



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Disaster Funding

Attempting to solidify his "fiscal conservative" credentials, Mitt Romney wants to send responsibility for disaster relief back to the states, if not private industry. Continuing to handle disaster relief at a Federal level "jeopardizes the future for our kids" and is "immoral."

Which makes me wonder just how bad disasters have to get in this country to remind someone so out-of-touch why the Federal government started getting involved in this in the first place.

And maybe I've got the wrong definition of "fiscal conservative" in my mind, but I thought one of the bottom lines of that belief system was to make sure any tax dollars spent were done so in the most efficient and effective way possible, with a subtext of keeping the overall national economy sound. Removing disaster relief as a responsibility of the Federal government only makes sense if your definition of "fiscal conservatism" is don't spend any money, ever and you don't give a shit about localized or regional problems dragging down the whole national economy.

Here's something Romney needs to be reminded of: the states already pay for disaster relief. Private organizations already pay for disaster relief. Do you know why the Federal government also needs to be involved, Mitt? Because even with their efforts combined, the states and private organizations cannot touch the level of funding required to relieve even moderately sized disasters in terms of economic and material damage, let alone the big ones.

So let's look at the numbers from the big leagues of disasters. One low estimate places the damage figures of Hurricane Katrina and the Federal Flood at $81 Billion*, not including overall economic impact to the states and regions most affected or the nation at large. Keep in mind that, at the time, gasoline got up to $4 a gallon many places far, far away from the Gulf Coast.

Let's do a little common sense math. Compare that figure to the state budget of Louisiana for FY 2005 ($17.5 Billion), the state budget of Mississippi for 2005 (just under $13 Billion), and the state budget of Alabama for 2005 ($33.2 Billion).

All three of those total state budgets combined ($63.7 Billion) only make up 78% of the total low damage estimate. That means three states of the union most affected by Katrina and the levee failures would have had to spend every single tax dollar they recieved that year and it still wouldn't have covered the recovery. And that's a total figure, which means the states wouldn't be able to pay for anything else without massive deficit spending.

While private organizations contributed a tremendous effort and generous sums of money and materiel to the recovery, do you think they'd be able to come up with $17.3 BILLION?

Of course, the states could have rebuilt without Federal help, given a generation or three. But who can estimate the economic fallout to these most affected states, the larger regional impact, and to the Union at large if these areas were forced into a local or regionalized recovery that the most affected states couldn't pay for before the disaster destroyed huge swaths of their state economies?

I can only imagine that Louisiana would have had to levy higher duties on shipping interests bringing products through what was left of New Orleans to even begin making a dent in their recovery needs. The economic ripples would have affected every suburban commutuer in America who drives a car and every American whose diet depends on the Midwestern corn crop. Things that happen one place tend to affect the lives of others someplace else. A butterfly flaps its wings and all that.

Now run that same scenario against these figures. Or just look at the map (PDF).

Sure looks like a national problem needing national solutions to me. And if "conservatism" means we throw responsibility for all that back on the states, private organizations, and - make no mistake - the individual familes who fall victim to such disasters, maybe it is time to start thinking of "conservatism" as its own dirty word.

(* - NOAA estimates the damage at $133 Billion)

An Adult Problem

Like so many School Boards and School Systems across this country, students get to deal with the mess the adults make of things.

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Flood Panels (continued)

This weekend, decisions were made. In Louisiana, the US Army Corps of Engineers doesn't need to blow up levees along the Mississippi River, because there are already flood control structures in place to handle the overflow.

For the Bonne Carre spillway, this decision is easier made. Water flows from the River into Lake Pontchartrain. This might raise the level of the lake a few feet, causing some problems to those who live in low lying areas. It also affects the fisheries, as that much freshwater can change the habitats of lake and sea life very rapidly. When making the call between threatening the levees and industrial infrastructure downriver, that's not a difficult choice to make. The Bonne Carre has been open for some time now.

But those costs are minor ones compared to the opening of the Morganza. The Morganza spills Mississippi River water into the Atchafalaya River, and into communities that aren't as well-protected as Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The water is going to back up tributaries and bayous significantly (as it did on the Mississippi far upriver) and flood a lot of homes even far away from the banks of the river.

Hence the long wait to open Morganza. Not only did the USACoE have to give those people time to evacuate, or protect their property with sandbags, but it had to make a case that leaving the Mississippi River flowing at its current volume could do massive damage to Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and the nation's shipping and oil refining infrastructure. With a flood this big, it doesn't really matter how strong the levees are in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Those costs were weighed both ways, and the decision was made. Morganza opened this weekend. Acadiana is preparing for high water, again, and Louisiana is preparing to bear the brunt of high human costs associated with flooding.

The political implications boil my blood. Demagouges and populist sentiment won't wait long to point out that rural communities in "Real America" were sacrificed for cities and "elites" as if that makes any sort of sense in Louisiana's case. The same people would be screaming about the high price of gasoline if the refineries were allowed to flood for a month. There will - of course - be a racial undertone to it, as insidious as that is. I've already heard the phrase "President Obama Doesn't Care About White People," in reference to Kanye West's infamous response to flooding after Hurricane Katrina.

But what won't be talked about - again - is why this is happening. Why is the river flooding so badly up and down the Mississippi River? Why did decisions like this have to be made? How can our current infrastructure and zoning be made to more effectively mitigate this sort of thing? Why did most flooding come from tributaries? Why is the Louisiana coast disappearing? Why are areas so much more prone to flooding today?

Because - pay attention - this is what it looks like when the system we currently have works. This is the plan. This is our nation's cost of doing business the same way we always have. Two observations come from that:

One - if you think this cost too much, imagine if the system wasn't working as planned. I'll give you a hint, it would be 2005 flooding expensive.

Two - if you want a better flood control policy in this country, it is going to cost a lot of long term money. You have to weigh that against long-term costs.

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Disaster Politics

Unsurprisingly, there are a few individuals (mostly website comment trolls) who consider themselves on "the left," who are taking the opportunity of the Tornado disasters and Mississippi River flooding to oversimplify the political beliefs of Southerners and write us all off as Tea Partiers demanding smaller government. By virtue of our assumed collective hatred for TEH SOCIALIZMS of disaster recovery, they think we should live our values now and not ask for any Federal aid. Viewing the South through such a lens, they then descend into "blame the victim" territory so ably applied by their political rivals.

Beyond the fact that their finger-wagging is an absolute failure of narrative building (at which they simply are not prepared to compete with the right), they end up running into other folks on "the left" who despise the concepts of collective blame, political marketing, and false equivalence.

Folks with more crediblity are ready to stop them in their tracks:

Hating on the South in the comments for voting Republican will get you banned, permanently. I'm in no mood.

Thanks for that.

It also got me thinking. Most importantly, disasters don't check your voter registration before they come crashing through the door. Anyone, anywhere. There but for the Grace of God go I.

But there are apparently plenty of folks who do concern themselves with the voting patterns of Southerners as it relates to the current state of disaster. Not that it should matter, but look at this map alongside the one of where flooding is the worst. Look at the 2008 election returns in Tuscaloosa and Jefferson Counties in Alabama.

Which way did the disaster victims vote, again? And, again, why does it matter?

I hesitate to bring that up. The chorus of "why do you live by a river" is already warming up in the national narrative, and I'm sure there are plenty of right wing elements who are going to use the "handouts" to flood victims and anecdotes of government ineffectiveness in their own states in order to raise some political capital for the next election. I'd expect the same demagougery from Democratic or "liberal" elements as well. Same as it ever was.

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The Flood

Jerz and I have often spoken of government waste over the years.

Is anyone ready to start questioning why the best plan available to the Midwest and South is to blow up the levees?

I mean, if you have to destroy something and cause a catastrophe in order to escape and even bigger catastrophe, what does that tell you?

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The Race Card vs. the Crying Racism Card

Oh, Haley Barbour stepped in the briar patch this week. And because our politics are what they are, who knows if it was planned or if it was a candid assessment of one man's perspective on history? All we can do is examine the resulting sound and fury, and figure out what that says about our culture today.

Just to define the terms, since they are close in definition and closely linked,

Race Card - a false accusation of racism to further political goals, usually used to describe an individual or an organization as racist.

Crying Racism Card - a false accusation that an individual or an organization is the victim of someone else playing the Race Card.

Here is why the distinction is important, politically speaking. That's something we've seen for a while now in our national discourse.

Though Barbour has issued the mandatory and obligatory retraction, and it sounds as genuine as it can, he still got his name in the news cycle and will be talked about on right-wing blogs and talk radio as a victim of hypersensitive left-wingery.

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