What's Playin' At The Roxy?

What's playin' at the Roxy?
I'll tell ya what's playin' at the Roxy--
Story about a Minnesota man
So in love wit' a Mississippi girl
That he sacrifices everything
And moves all the way to Biloxi.
That's what's playin' at the Roxy!

George Bush has announced a $200 million program to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. This at a time of national deficit and in the face of reasoned questioning of the wisdom of building in these locations and even more, the implied federal guarantee of a bailout when the inevitable disaster strikes.

Why? I suspect three causes:

1. A reaction to the Hive's attacks--partly but only partly deserved--on Bush's and the federal response to Katrina.


2. Genuine compassion for those affected by the disaster.


3. The impulse to do something big, to which this Administration is no stranger.

The cat is out of this particular bag, and only someone like me, an obscure blogger whose political career is in the past, is likely to question the concept. Nevertheless, here goes:

1. This is a time of huge federal deficits, and the undisciplined dispensing of federal pork. To add $200M to this amount, even spread over more than one budget year, seems risky. The country is overextended: there is a federal deficit, a trade deficit, a war (however just) whose popularity is slipping, potential energy problems, a looming pandemic, out-of-control illegal immigration, and a continuing terrorist threats. To take on another huge project without looking at our limitations may be visionary, but it may also be foolhardy.


2. There is a substantial "moral risk" in such a program. The message is the feds will override the risks of building in particular locations. As a result, fewer will take into account the risks of such construction by thinking again, building more robustly, buying insurance, or building elsewhere if the actuaries won't allow insurance to be issued. In short, are we rewarding folly, and encouraging renewed folly?


3. Precedent. I can just see Jesse Jackson saying that the gummint has chosen to help the black poor of New Orleans, but is neglecting the black poor of Detroit, Brooklyn, and South Central L.A. The problems of the Gulf Coast run the risk of being federalized, nationwide.


4. Incompetence. There's little sign, other than the resignation of the hapless Michael Brown, that the deficiencies of the federal apparatus have been cured. Much of the 200 mil may be stolen, wasted, or applied inefficiently. For example, buying thousands of mobile homes seems almost like seeding tornadoes.

I know this sounds Grinchy, and worthy of my nom-de-plume, Grumpy Old Man. But I do fear the federal largesse will be wasted, à  la the bridge to nowhere in Alaska, the Harley Staggers Express, and other classic boondoggles.

I also wonder what should be rebuilt. The French Quarter and the Garden District are national treasures and weren't flooded much, and as long as the Corps of Engineers keeps the Mississippi from following its natural course near Morgan City, the port is essential to the economy. The Ninth Ward, though, was a vulnerable slum, and the areas near Lake Pontchartrain pleasant but unremarkable, still-vulnerable petty-bourgeois suburbs. New Orleans was horribly run, and its population was in decline for that and other reasons. There are substantial environmental questions--erosion of the alluvial barrier islands and wetlands, toxic pollution, continued flood risk. How much thinking is going into what to rebuild, where and how?

Folly is everywhere, but nowhere more so than in gummint. I hope we are smarter, braver, and luckier with this reconstruction than we deserve to be.