Broken Promises: A Bush specialty

It's been a full year since Katrina devestated The Big Easy. Congress has promised 17 Billion dollars to the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the rehabilitation of the hurricane ravaged Gulf coast region. Of that sum, $100 million has actually been spent.
How much of that is parked at the Hope, AR airport in the form of 10,000 unused trailers? How big are the Halliburton dividends?
Who gives a rat's ass for the fate of the U.S. taxpayers and citizens devestated not only a natural calamity, but also by a criminally incompetent administration. Obviously, no one in this administration cares.

Paul Krugman at the NYT:

Apologists for the administration will doubtless claim that blame for the lack of progress rests not with Mr. Bush, but with the inherent inefficiency of government bureaucracies. That's the great thing about being an antigovernment conservative: even when you fail at the task of governing, you can claim vindication for your ideology.

[...]

Mr. Bush could have moved quickly to turn his promises of reconstruction into reality. But he didn't. As months dragged by with little sign of White House action, all urgency about developing a plan for reconstruction ebbed away.

Mr. Bush could have appointed someone visible and energetic to oversee the Gulf Coast's recovery, someone who could act as an advocate for families and local governments in need of help. But he didn't. How many people can even name the supposed reconstruction "czar"?

[...]

Maybe the aid promised to the gulf region will actually arrive some day. But by then it will probably be too late. Many former residents and small-business owners, tired of waiting for help that never comes, will have permanently relocated elsewhere; those businesses that stayed open, or reopened after the storm, will have gone under for lack of customers. In America as in Iraq, reconstruction delayed is reconstruction denied ‹ and Mr. Bush has, once again, broken a promise.

Read the whole column