Progressive Talking Points 1/13/06

Long Forgotten

If you were in New Orleans in the past three months and were looking for President Bush, don’t worry, you didn’t miss him. Astoundingly, the president has not visited the hurricane-ravaged city since October of last year. The president spent less than 24 hours in the Gulf region before jetting off to a multimillion-dollar fundraiser in Palm Beach, Florida. Three months of ignoring the problem, a cursory visit, all capped off with a multimillion-dollar fundraiser – pretty much par for the course for Bush in New Orleans.

• Bush has neglected the reconstruction of New Orleans in comparison to Iraq.New Orleans still in crisis. While funding for Iraq goes smoothly (another $100 billion will be sought this year) a $29 billion aid package passed last month for the Gulf states reeked of politics.
  
  “Abandoned wastelands of uninhabitable homes and sidewalks piled with moldy garbage"; lack of temporary housing; "whole sections lack basic utilities"; major highways remain closed and "commerce proceeds at a creep and an estimated 12 percent of businesses are open.” This is not a description of war-torn Iraq, but of a
• Where is the victory strategy for New Orleans? Despite the fact that Bush has not visited New Orleans in three months, he has found the time to canvass the country in support as part of his public relations campaign, “Strategy for Victory in Iraq.”, There is no question the future of Iraq is essential to our nation’s safety, but shouldn’t President Bush be putting the same amount of effort into rebuilding one of America's greatest cities and the lives of its citizens?
  
  
• Bush has an opportunity to address the problems plaguing New Orleans pre-Katrina. Like many other impoverished areas, the poor of New Orleans have suffered long before Katrina hit. With reconstruction, the administration has an opportunity to fix many of the problems it has turned a blind eye to for the past five years. The persistent pockets of poverty and crumbling school system that New Orleans had can be addressed with new solutions and thinking. It would be a shame if the administration overlooked this chance to tackle this serious problem.