bryanjazz

It seems that a category 4 hurricane and the failure of the levee system was not enough for New Orleans to endure. As the rest of America is now learning, the city, like many other tourist destinations around the world, was one in which lots of capital and resources flowed through, but also in which the wealth, as I've mentioned before, largely benefited those other than the local inhabitants. The word "exploitation" comes to mind.

Now, in its latest scheme to destroy poor and working class Americans effort to assist in the aftermath of Katrina, House Repugnats Republicans, in their increasingly stingy attitudes and disdain for those in need, have come up with a plan for $750 million dollars in loans to the devastated areas, with the "unprecedented" contingency that the loans are not to be forgiven if the local governments fail to repay them. From the L.A. Times article on Friday:

Lawmakers Put Stringent Conditions on Federal Relief Loans
By Mary Curtius, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- In a sign of the growing backlash to rebuilding costs, lawmakers attached unprecedented strings today to legislation that would provide $750 million in federal loans for hurricane-damaged cities.

The action came just weeks after President Bush pledged to spend whatever it takes to rebuild the Gulf Coast...

Eventually, the [Louisiana] delegation was forced to accept a measure that, for the first time, explicitly forbids the federal government from forgiving the loans if state or municipal governments fail to repay them. In the past, the federal government has often forgiven all or part of such disaster relief, offered under the 1974 Stafford Act.

A crippling prospect. Keep in mind that we are talking about a region in which at least one city (New Orleans) has already laid off municipal workers, or face the prospect of doing so shortly, and face a near non-existent tax base since much of the area is uninhabitable. This, of course, will lead to a region within the United States that mirrors those of other so-called third-world nations. I guess it's a natural extension of international monetary policy within US borders. (For insight into how this policy works in the Caribbean, I highly recommend the film Life and Debt.) Contrast this federal approach with the quick promise of $20 billion to New York City after 9/11.

This is the national response to the most expensive natural disaster in US history...perhaps human history.

Choices, choices...

* (Listening to Jill Scott's, "My Petition")