I watched the President’s speech on CNN International from my Manila hotel room. I have a few observations. First I thought the plan to build New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast were good. The Pres. talked about fighting poverty and the roots of racism. Looks like, at least for those along the Gulf Coast, African-American are finally going to get the proverbial “forty-acres and a mule”. That’s nice, a couple of nagging questions in my mind:
1. How about affordable housing, fighting poverty and racism in the rest of the country?
2. Are the actual conservative GOP members of Congress going to go along with it?
3. How the hell are the feds going to pay for all this?
Near as I can tell the answers are, don’t care, probably not and borrow a shit load of money. The GOP wants to push through more tax cuts, destroy more of the social safety net for the rest of the country and balloon the deficit. So much for party discipline. More likely, I think the Bush was mouthing nice words and has no real plans for follow through. I would think that Rove & company know that this plan would not be a political possibility.
G.O.P. Split Over Big Plans for Storm Spending – New York Times
