Don't forget what Nikita Kruschev said

Today's Washington Post is reporting that Louisiana got plenty of money for its infrastructure. Except the State's politicians spent it on other projects rather than on New Orleans' levees.

By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff WriterThursday,
September 8, 2005;

Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had already launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a huge new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic.
Except that barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing.

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 as large.

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.

For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast.

Not all that surprising that facts paint a different picture than what some politicians are saying. Louisiana's politicians either knowing their culpable in last week's tragedy, or out of sheer partisanship have decided to tell a story that is simply not true. This is out of the Washington Post.

There is plenty of blame to go around for what happened to New Orleans. Politicians just pass the buck, never wanting to accept responsibility. That goes from the local level up to the President of the United States. There is plenty of blame to pass around for politicians past and present of both parties.

Louisiana's leaders spent the money as James Joyner at OTB said where the most economic impact could be made rather than for what was the biggest needs. Again rather typical for our government and how it works. As Nikita Kruschev said- "Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers."

And for that we have over a thousand people dead in Louisiana. I don't expect anyone to step up and take the blame for that.

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