Ron,

RE: $200,000,000

I would be the most unpopular man in America. The federal government did not build New Orleans in the first place. Bush heaped a load of stupidity upon the already inept handling of New Orleans in the first place. He should not have offered to rebuild New Orleans. It is proof that he does not have the mind of a conservative that he even offered. Were he truly a conservative, he would have beleived in New Orleans' capability to rebuild itself upon sound economic principles.

I would not, as president, offer to rebuild any city that I could not likewise offer anywhere else in America -- if San Fransisco or St Louis were destroyed by earthquake, Miami by like hurricane, Indianapolis by a tornado, or Omaha by sheer insipidity -- or, evolution forbid, all of those events happened at once.

The fed is good at doling out $$ to care for temporary needs. Every city was built by every city and history. And every city's reason for existance is tied to its geography, natural resources, etc.

It is such a 21st century American notion of "instant gratification" that thinks that New Orleans can be instantly rebuilt anyway. It flies in the face of history and reason.

Geographically, NO has been living on borrowed time anyway (I was first built above sea level). If some businesses want to go back into that locale and rebuild for sound economic reasons then let them have at it -- sans US fed money.

What Bush has essentially promised is a city that will be raised on the government dole -- forever to remain that way. If there are nt sound economic reasons for rebuilding, then all the US back loans offered in the emotion of the moment will forever go unretired.

But try to say that as an American politician. Americans think that money is the answer to everything.