New Orleans politics

A letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune  by political and market analyst,  Grant  Noble:

""To The Editor,                                                                                                                September 5, 2005 

Since 1900, the U.S. Gulf Coast has been hit with 17  Class 4 hurricanes (Galveston was demolished by one in 1900).  One Class 5 monster, Hurricane Camille in 1969, came within a hundred miles of New Orleans.  The people of Louisiana have known for over 100 years they needed to have (at least) Class 4 hurricane protection for New Orleans. 

The $2.5 billion (in today’s dollars) that was needed, with congressional barons from Louisiana like F. Edward Herbert and John Breaux, could have come mostly from the Federal government, but nothing was done.  Even the “Class 3” protection they supposedly had failed.  Engineers were astonished to see that, instead of the feared Class 4 wave surge pouring over the top of the levees, the levees broke a day after the hurricane  left, indicating improper construction or maintenance. 

The Louisiana Governor, Kathleen Blanco, admitted in a Sunday morning press conference that President Bush called her on Saturday to plead with her to issue a state of emergency for Louisiana and a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans. A year ago when Hurricane Ivan barely missed the city of New Orleans, both the Governor and city planners took heavy criticism for the inconvenience they caused their population when hurricane Ivan didn't hit their city. When Bush called on Saturday to ask what the heck was going on, the governor finally issued a state of emergency proclamation because she now had her scapegoat should Katrina not hit the city.   

Every state governor has a National Guard at their disposal, not to mention all the State Police and law enforcement agencies at their call. Louisiana still retained 66% of their National Guard for a crisis just like this. After the state of emergency declared by the president on Saturday, the governor not only has the power to request federal resources, she can request the National Guard from surrounding states. She did neither before this storm, nor did she order a mandatory evacuation. 

But what makes matters worse is Blanco failed to use her own National Guard for the purposes of law enforcement. This was a political decision because she did not want to be the person giving
orders that might result in the shooting of "poor, black people."   Instead, the Attorney General of Louisiana justified the looting. On Tuesday, while water was pouring into New Orleans (and over hundreds of idle school buses that could have been used for evacuation the Monday after the hurricane left), the Mayor insisted everything was under control.  On Wednesday, after shooting and looting broke out all over the city, the Mayor was screaming for Federal help. 

Bush should have been ready at that moment to send in Federal troops.  But I can understand his hesitation.  Even then, if somehow the local and state authorities got things under control before the Federal troops arrived, he would have blamed for “political grandstanding”. 

The moral of the story is never trust a politician with a life and death decision.

Like the need for better hurricane protection in New Orleans, it’s obvious something catastrophic is going to happen to our government finances if something isn’t done now about out of control spending, Social Security, government agencies like Fannie Mae or our huge trade deficit.  But here’s the dirty little secret  of government---it loves to create problems it can “solve”. The voters will probably get rid of Blanco and Mayor Nagin, but the Louisiana political establishment will cash in more on the hundreds of billions spent on reconstruction than they would have if things had stayed the same.  Something to think about the next time a politician promises a new program to  “solve” some problem the
government created in the first place.

Most Sincerely,

Grant D. Noble""