Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

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We can debate who should be held responsibility for a botched/non-existent evacuation plan for those ho had no means of leaving New Orleans on their own and we should. We can debate who is responsible for the lack luster response after the storm came and we should do that as well. But the issue that must be debated and talked about is why the levies were not built up to handled a level 5 Hurricane even though there were years of dire warnings that spelled out exactly the tragedy we see today if a major Hurricane struck. Why did the country allow this to occur after all if I may paraphrase a George W Bush tagline, it’s not if but when will disaster strike?

The answer isn’t as easy as blaming George W Bush for providing funds to fight a war in Iraq rather than fix the levies in New Orleans, after all the levies have been inadequate for years before Bush came into office and although dire warnings from Scientists have grown louder in recent years this goes beyond one man, one administration. The fact is much of the countries infrastructure is crumbling. A report put out by the American Society of Civil Engineers this year gave U.S. infrastructure an overall grade of a D and while a massive and pork filled highway bill passed last month to fix the nations transit systems the fact remains that the drinking water system, power grids, Dams, Waster disposal, and many other facets that Americans take for granted are falling apart.

Fixing this means holding those accountable for where the tax money goes. It means taking on and questioning government waste and make those fighting for local projects show the need for them. Quite simply remove the politics from rewarding funds, and one of the biggest targets should be the U.S. Military. With a budget of over 400 billion dollars a year it is sucking valuable resources that could be used to fix the country but Americans have become comfortable or at least numb to the fact that the military is a synonymous with waste. The American public will realize that the funds to create a safe barrier for New Orleans and avoid this tragedy were there, they were just diverted towards wasteful projects. Accountability is something that politicians fear but that is what will fix the systems and end the waste.

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

I know u didnt write this. Where is the link?

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

Good Idea :k:

I offer My 100,000 Pakistani fully trained Troops for rebuilding process, with logistics :salute:

America is our all weather, all water friend. We can not leave her alone in this testing situation.

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

Yep UTD, lets start with completely shutting down all welfare programs that provide incentive to certain peopel to have more children so they can get more, lets stop the waste on prisoners who have life sentence and are costing tax payers $30,000 a pop....change all these sentences to death ...that will be one time hit of $2500. You see I have already given you two very good solutions to help USA , now dont disappoint me and drop the support for the bitch Hillary....she will change this country into a socialist state and we do not want that to happen.

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

And for goodness sakes UTD, let's stop this hue and cry for socialized medicine under the guise of national healthcare reform. That won't leave enough money to rebuild the levies either.

Everyone knows of the disasterous consequences that will befall much of California when certain cities get hit with the 9.5 earthquake. The buildings and bridges and gas lines and homes and transit systems will collapse and cease to function. It doesn't do any good to have codes in place requiring buildings and bridges to withstand 7.4 earthquakes. The BIG ONE is coming. We KNOW the devastation it will cause. If we don't divert a trillion dollars now to rebuild all of California to deal with the BIG ONE, who shall we blame?

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

Myvoice, Scientists have been predicting for years that more devastating hurricanes would be hitting the U.S. and with the geographic setup of New Orleans it wasn't some half loon predictions of what would happen. The sad thing is myvoice is that you buy into Bush's fear propaganda on terrorism, As Bush say's "it's not if, but when!" Are you a scared old man? Rather than spend money on fixing the levies do you think it's a wise idea to spend money on a 'Star Wars' missile program? You probably do, after all myvoice, they are coming for you!

Kaleem, you want to take away medication from poor children and those that can't afford it and kill off prisoners, quite a plan. You would think you would want to cut out some military spending based on your signature but rather predictable[font=Times New Roman] you decided to go with classic conservative methods of spending reductions.

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

UTD, $30,000 per prisoner per year...I am offering a plan with onetime hit of $2500 per prisoner...that is it....do the math, that is a lot of money we are talking about. BTW its not for all prisoners its for prisoners with life sentences and on death row.

I did not propose cutting the programs for the kids...I proposed cutting the programs for people who like to start producing around 18 and dont stop till they are 50 and end up with about 5-7 kids and never provide for them. Contrary to what Hillary may have taught you...It does not take a village...it takes two responsible parents (father and mother) to raise, provide and take care of the children.

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

You bet I’m in favor of missile defense. Have been since it’s initial formulation as project “High Frontier” in the early 80s.

I would have been happy directing federal money to building better levies in NO. But your liberal minded heroes would rather spend millions with the National Endowment of the Arts so that they can display photos of homosexuals in the act or pictures of crucifixes with a load of crap on them and call such displays “art.” Every Congressman and Senator of both parties would rather direct a million or two of my tax dollars to a local project researching whether pigs could fly if they had wings.

You want an answer to a whole bunch of wasteful spending? Give the President a line-item veto like most governors have. Let the President veto individual pork barrel projects in the budget rather than force him to veto the whole budget or none of it.

As to priorities. The first and foremost priority of the federal government is national defense. Below that you’ve got a big difference of opinion. If I were a Congressman or Senator, I’d place higher priority on infrastructure improvements like levies in NO than many social welfare programs and most certainly more than for the NEA. I’d rather overfund for defense and see the Pentagon waste money by buying hammers for $150 each than approve the following expenditures approved in the last budget: $2 million for “kitchen relocation” in Fairbanks, Alaska; $1.5 million to “transport naturally chilled water” from Lake Ontario to Lake Onondaga; and $167,000 for “Horn fly research” in Alabama.

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

Help indeed, but America is not at all an “all weather” friend…it has abandoned Pakistan more than once…

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

Wait a second. I drive down Route 95, and every major city has huge road projects. Baltimore, DC, NY, New Jersey. Of course there is the big dig in Boston, 40 years of Metro expansion in DC, and they are building like one school per month in Vegas and five a month in Florida just to keep up with the population changes. This country builds like mad. We have plenty of infrastructure. Is every dollar spent on the right infrastructure? There you might have an arguement.

Is every infrastructure dollar a federal dollar? Hardly. With low interest rates every municipality that can issue bonds is calling their high interest bonds and issuing new low interest bonds. Massachusetts, the king of liberal spending, is running a state surplus for god sakes. To extrapolate a levy failure and say that it is the surface of a much bigger problem is certainly not proven.

I'll tell you the biggest risk we took, and one that Bush will get no credit for. The closure of oil infrastructure could have put the country into a recession. Our pipelines, ports, refineries and terminals are not redundant, and have very little spare capacity. We dodged a huge bullet. We need a deep water port in the Panhandle of Florida. We need redundant pipelines from multiple entry points.

And, overlooked in all of this is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Bush made a commitment after 9/11 to fill the entrie capacity. Oddly enough, the storage was due to be completely full this August, the country has never before had more barrels of oil in reserve. We should double the capacity of that reserve, and set up similar programs for natural gas, and refined fuels. THAT is the infrastructure story we should be paying attention to. If OBL hit the Colonial Pipeline today, we would have a five year recession, and a lot more than one city would be in trouble...

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

What if the said military invades much rich lands and gets enough money to fund the military AND build the levies, eh thats a good idea!

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

I am going a bit off-topic, but the debate over blaming Bush (or earlier Presidents) over ignoring New Orlean levees is actually very interesting.

Hind sight is always 20-20, but the fact is, man can not take on mother nature and come out victorious 100% of the time. It is the job of the scientiests to project worst-case scenarios, and I am sure this is a valuable exercise for them. Fact is, finite resources are spent in ways that make sense at that time (pork filled highway bill notwithstanding).

As an example, most new buildings in San Francisco are earthquake resistant, but only up to a point. They may survive a Richter 6 EQ, but may not survive a 9. Scientists will project worst case scenarios for what will happen to down town SF if a Richter 9 hits SF, and it may all be true, but how many richter 9 have hit SF in history and what is the cost of retrofitting the buildings to survive after a 9 hits?

Same with New Orleans. Yes, levees should have been reinforced. But my understanding is that they were rated to handle hurricanes upto Category 3. Based on some early news reports, a grand total of four Category 4 hurricanes have made landfall in US since records have been kept. Yes, scientists had warned about levees for years, like they do about everything else, but the odds of Category 4 making landfall in the US and then going for NO was just a statistical possibility. If it happens, like it did, catastrophic. SF will be similarly destroyed if a Richter 10 hits it. And statistically it may hit any time between now and the next 100 years.

I think the more important debate should be on the response time after the hurricane, and not to second-guess why NO was not prepared for a Category 4+ hurricane.

The comment "remove the politics from rewarding funds" sounds like a knee-jerk reaction. It looks fantastic on paper, but hardly practical, and almost like a Utopia. If we take decision-making from Congress, instead it will be left to bureacracy to make these decisions, and neither of these organizations can keep 100% of the population happy. Its like moving from one not-so-perfect choice to another. Its a zero sum game.

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Re: Rebuild Iraq? What about rebuilding America?

Agreed Faisal. We could all drive Abrams tanks, and no one would ever die in an accident. We have the technology.

Think of the devil &...
Think of the devil &...