Funding the levees

Now I'm getting up on my soapbox. I'd better get down before I fall. But first . . .

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times larger.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

Okay, so Louisiana got a load of money from the Feds. Did they spend it wisely? Well, if it was spent on "wasteful pork-barrel" projects, then clearly not.

This is another problem I have with government. It's so big that citizens cannot really keep it all under watch. Even the press is overwhelmed. There's no way local New Orleans newspapers and other media can keep watch on all aspects of government work in the New Orleans area.

It seems to me that if the government was focused almost exclusively on combating crime, defending against attacks by foreign enemies and doing its utmost to prevent natural catastrophes we would have a lot less government by stealth, where pet projects divert resources away from the primary task.

Fundamental questions about government's role and performance need to be asked.

Oh yeah, this is mostly for the British & Irish folks, who are fed a steady diet of "It's Bush's fault" by the media with little by way of a counter argument. From the same article in today's Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years.