Bush criticizes Congress over New Orleans levees

[sabra]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N08502239.htm

Bush criticizes Congress over New Orleans levees


NEW ORLEANS, March 8 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush accused Congress on Wednesday of shortchanging New Orleans of about $1.5 billion in funds to rebuild levees that were breached by flood waters when Hurricane Katrina struck.

"Congress heard our message about improving the levees but they shortchanged the process by about $1.5 billion dollars," Bush said in a rare attack on members of his own party as he toured the devastated city.

"And so in order to help fulfill our promise on the levees, Congress needs to restore the $1.5 billion to make this a real commitment to inspire the good folks down here that they'll have a levee system that will encourage development and reconstruction," Bush added.

The White House in December announced it was seeking $3.1 billion to bolster flood defenses, but Congress only approved about half that amount for New Orleans with the rest going to other hurricane-related projects.

[MadMaddie]

1. Oh.....* eorgie....it's your Congress.......

always pointing the finger at everyone else except yourself......

The levies are being poorly reconstructed by the Army of Corp of Engineers......and they are being built in a similar to the ones that were destroyed by Katrina.....

You f**&d this one up too.....

[ixion]

10. to quote a song from Dire Straits:

"When you point your finger 'cause your plan fell through, got three more fingers, pointing back at you.

-- Solid Rock, by Dire Straits.


This is a textbook case of that, IMO.

[havocmom]

2. Must've been painful to accept there was no way to blame Clinton

Maybe the party in power needs to re-evaluate where all the $$ is going. Not enough to fix important infrastructure but plenty to illegally invade innocent nations and hand out billions to private contractors without proper oversight.

Next up: granny and gramps moving in with you to save the government lots of money...

[stepnw1f]

3. Dry Drunk Narcissism

amazing

[madeline_con]

16. Dry????? n/t

[Barrett808]

4. No mention of the $200 million+ Bush diverted from levee construction...

...to fund his illegal vanity war. Damned liberal media.

[bullimiami]

5. again, the buck stop there ------->>>>>>>

[wake.up.america]

6. GWB can do whatever he wants with Congress, so where is the logic?

[rocktivity]

7. Bush decided to stop funding the work being done on the levees

in order to fund Iraq. How can he say it's ANYONE'S fault, never mind Congress'?

The White House in December announced it was seeking $3.1 billion to bolster flood defenses, but Congress only approved about half that amount for New Orleans with the rest going to other hurricane-related projects.

If that refers to December 2005, my mother would have referred to it "closing the barn door after the horse has gone out."

:shrug:
rocknation

[madeline_con]

17. PBS Prediction 9.20.02

DANIEL ZWERDLING: Remember the levees which the Army built, to hold smaller floods out of the bowl? Maestri says now those levees would doom the city. Because they'd trap the water in.

WALTER MAESTRI: It's going to look like a massive shipwreck. There's going to be-- there's going to be, you know-- everything that that the water has carried in is going to be there. Alligators, moccasins, you know every kind of rodent that you could think of.

All of your sewage treatment plants are under water. And of course the material is flowing free in the community. Disease becomes a distinct possibility now. The petrochemicals that are produced all up and down the Mississippi River --much of that has floated into this bowl. I mean this has become, you know, the biggest toxic waste dump in the world now. Is the city of New Orleans because of what has happened.

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_neworleans.html

[HuffleClaw]

8. WHAAAAA???????

oh sure, a lame attempt to make himself look like the GOOD GUY. never mind the recent VIDEO EVIDENCE to the contrary. ahhahahhahhahaaa

[sinkingfeeling]

9. "...our message"...it's a Republican Congress, so who's 'our'?

[madeline_con]

18. He has a turd in his pocket. n/t

[central scrutinizer]

11. He spent more on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers than the Mississippi

http://www.factcheck.org/article344.html

A long history of complaints

Local officials had long complained that funding for hurricane protection projects was inadequate:

*
October 13, 2001: The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that “federal officials are postponing new projects of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Program, or SELA, fearing that federal budget constraints and the cost of the war on terrorism may create a financial pinch for the program.” The paper went on to report that “President Bush’s budget proposed $52 million” for SELA in the 2002 fiscal year. The House approved $57 million and the Senate approved $62 million. Still, “the $62 million would be well below the $80 million that corps officials estimate is needed to pay for the next 12 months of construction, as well as design expenses for future projects.”
*
April 24, 2004: The Times-Picayune reported that “less money is available to the Army Corps of Engineers to build levees and water projects in the Missisippi River valley this year and next year.” Meanwhile, an engineer who had direct the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Study – a study of how to restore coastal wetlands areas in order to provide a bugger from hurricane storm surges – was sent to Iraq "to oversee the restoration of the ‘Garden of Eden’ wetlands at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers,” for which President Bush’s 2005 gave $100 million.
*
June 8, 2004: Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, told the Times-Picayune:

Walter Maestri: It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq , and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.

[Rex]

12. This will be used as revisionist history by Rovebots

All jumbled in with Saddam and 911 will be this new notion that Bush pushed Congress to fund the levees (implying before the storm) which will be a CYA closure move. In time people will blur it all together and now I'm starting to see how so many Russians viewed Stalin as a hero after he died.

[shanti]

13. the funding was attached to the ports deal

and that is what stopped it. this is all about payback from * to congress.

[politicat]

14. Let me introduce you to the Kettle, Mr. Pot.

It's HIS FAULT Congress hasn't had the money to pay for the levees...

[madeline_con]

15. "... inspire the good folks down here ..."

Folks. He's such a maroon, supposedly went to Harvard, and is allegedly the leader of the free world, and the only language he speaks is Hick. :eyes:

"... other hurricane-related projects."

PSSST! That means Halliburton, BTW. :puke:

[susu369]

19. Bush and food

For years now, I've noticed that the majority of articles about bu$h* have a highlight of what the jerk EATS.

After a tour of a devastated area, his attention is on food:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/08/AR2006030800297.html

NEW ORLEANS, March 8 -- President Bush, on a Gulf Coast inspection tour that included his first visit to this city's storm-shattered Lower Ninth Ward, bluntly accused Congress on Wednesday of underfunding the repairs and called for speedy action to make good on federal commitments.

-snip-

Before visiting the Industrial Canal levee, where the Army Corps of Engineers is building 15-foot-high concrete flood walls to replace barriers damaged by Katrina, Bush toured the Lower Ninth Ward, a largely black, working-class community virtually obliterated by the storm.snip-

The trio watched as bulldozers piled rubble and loaded it onto a huge dump truck. Bush chatted and shook hands with workers, and at one point he reached into a pile of rubble and grabbed a piece of metal, which he quickly discarded.(now, that's a visual)

Meanwhile, Nagin wandered into an empty, wood-frame home and called out to Bush, "You ought to come see this." Bush then ventured inside. The president reappeared quickly and talked to other workers before returning to his motorcade, which moved through block after block of devastation.

Later, Bush stopped at a small eatery, one of the few businesses operating in the area. There, he sat at the small counter and ordered red beans and rice, cornbread, sausage, and salad, which he carried in a foam takeout container to his waiting sport-utility vehicle.

He shook hands with the family that runs the restaurant and posed for photos with Kim Stewart, 45, who boasted that she prepared the president's meal.