REBUILDING THE GULF COAST
by Helen R. Desfosses

President Bush's speech to the nation last night about rebuilding the Gulf Coast was meant to further his own political recovery while setting out effective ideas about the reconstruction of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. On both scores, he improved his situation, but he still has serious difficulties.

On the issue of his own political recovery, the tone he struck last night was more constructive and right-on than any that he's managed to strike in his public comments on Katrina so far, and I'm sure that the staging-Bush in shirt-sleeves and standing alone against a backdrop of a statue of Andrew Jackson, who defeated the British in the War of 1812-was carefully chosen to project a determined image and to restore our confidence in his leadership. But he's still struggling with the lowest approval ratings of his five years in office. Furthermore, faith in government in the United States has plummeted in the wake of Katrina-something that will have repercussions for all of us. Finally, although he alluded to the shocking level of poverty that the hurricane exposed, the language he used-mentioning how we saw it on television and that it was a problem in the region-still distanced his administration from the problem and in no way prepared our nation for how we need to wrestle with this as a critical national issue. I know from poll data showing that blacks are angrier than whites about the Katrina debacle, and from my own African-American students' statements, that minority reaction to the racial chasm in both standards of living and government action that Katrina exposed will be smoldering for years to come. If we're lucky, the response will be political, and not one of more direct action.

But on that score, as on the issue of the recovery and rebuilding of the Gulf, I woke up this morning feeling that America's luck has run out, if we call it luck that we've been able to avoid some tough choices in this country, and that serious challenges exist as we struggle to respond to the needs of the south. First of all, there's the question of resources. It was no accident last night that President Bush spoke of rebuilding the Gulf in terms remarkably similar to those he used on Iraq; he not only implied an open-ended Federal commitment, but as the New York Times pointed out, "Mr. Bush slipped comfortably into the language that he has used as commander in chief…pledging that the government 'will stay as long as it takes' to get the job done-an echo, almost word for word, of his formulation of how long the United States will remain in Iraq."

However, the fact is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already used up $300 billion, the same price tag as the early estimates for rebuilding the Gulf, and we don't have that money. Political choices will still have to be made about where to get it, with the Heritage Foundation and conservative Republicans pointing out that the estate tax will still have to be eliminated and other government social programs cut, and Democrats pointing out that very few of the Katrina victims had estates of over $1.5 million, and that doing things like expediting our withdrawal from Iraq, expecting the state governments of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to bear more of the costs, and calling for sacrifices by both rich and poor across America might provide some of these resources. How can the Republicans even talk about tax cuts at the same time as we're financing a war and the largest reconstruction effort in history? Furthermore, America has a lot of other costs and obligations across our own society and across the world, and even if we run up the deficit over its already high level of $400 billion, we will quickly be exhausting these avenues. President Bush said nothing last night about putting someone in charge of the recovery effort, but we do know that Republicans have suggested either Jack Welch of GE fame, or General Tommy Franks, who commanded US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. A very astute move politically would be to appoint a Democrat-now wouldn't that be something? Talk about sharing the responsibility!

The final challenge that still has not been confronted by the Bush administration is planning, planning the most sensible way to rebuild the area as well as planning the best and least corrupt use of the funds that are available. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert did have the courage to remark shortly after Katrina struck that "planners should reconsider whether to rebuild New Orleans where it was before, below sea-level", but nothing came of that. However, it is not too late to convene the best planning minds that we have in this country to figure out how to be rational and realistic. Building in a low-lying coastal area that lay open to so many disasters may have just been a mistake the first time; rebuilding the area with the same geographical and meteorological vulnerabilities would be a crime. We have another chance to get it right on the Gulf coast-politically and environmentally; let's not miss the opportunity.

Helen R. Desfosses is President of the Albany Common Council and Associate Dean of UAlbany's Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. Her commentaries are heard every Friday noon on WAMC Northeast Public Radio.