President Bush has finally started saying some of the right things. But in this White House, it is always vital to watch performance, not promise.
What did the White House do to gear up reconstruction? The president issued an order lowering the prevailing wage in construction contracts. The administration gave Halliburton and Fluor, two large Republican contributors, no-bid contracts. And the president ruled out any tax increases or shared sacrifice in Katrina’s wake.
“Rich and poor alike, they found themselves starting over,” David von Drehle and Jacqueline Salmon wrote in the Washington Post. “The former began buying new houses and leasing new office space. The latter waited in lines for a bar of soap or a peanut butter sandwich.”
Bush pledged to redress that poverty, but he acted to spread it by lowering the wage paid for construction workers. He offers federal land for the displaced to build homes on, but increases the number who won’t be able to afford a mortgage.
Bush called for making the Gulf Coast an enterprise zone, slashing corporate regulation and taxes to encourage investment. That sounds good. But rebuilding New Orleans will require more government regulation and monitoring – monitoring environmental hazards and cleanup, better zoning for flood areas, planning and building modern infrastructure.
If those who suffered the most in the storm – the poor, the elderly, the sick, the vulnerable – are to be part of the recovery, real plans must be made for them. They need a chance to go to work to rebuild their towns and homes. That requires temporary housing close to the rebuilding zones, training, job placement, and public investment in affordable housing and mass transit.
If this is left to the private market, the poor are likely to be abandoned again. Billions are already being spent. The lobbyists and corporate predators are already on the hunt. Without public presence and planning, private profiteers are likely to turn New Orleans into a theme park, untroubled by working or poor people.
This week, the Washington Post reported on FEMA City, a trailer city of 1,500 people outside of Punta Gorda, Fla. FEMA created the city to house some of those left homeless in the wake of Hurricane Charley last fall. Now most are still there, increasingly angry and desperate. Punta Gorda has begun to rebuild, but they are being left out of the mix.
The hurricane destroyed hundreds of small homes and low-rent apartments along the Peace River and almost all of the town’s public housing. As the rebuilding began, landlords found that they could substantially increase their rents and upgrade their properties. As the Post reports, “the low-income working people most likely to have been displaced by the hurricane and now most likely to be displaced by the recovery too.”