Nah, GUEST, on runninh' for office... I've been approcahed a couple times but I'm way tyoo busy for that... My business partner has been on town council for the last 4 years and has just finished her term the end of last month and it was like getting released from prison...

I like my involvement with the local Main Street program just fine...

Now, back to why the "gate' after Katrina... When 9/11 hit the Bush adminstration did majoe reshuffling of policies and departments... Yes, part of the reshuffling came as a result of the the Dem proposal for the DHS but the reshuffling of funding, orgainization and policy was done primarily within the Bush adminsitration...


If you'll recall, right after 9/11 there was a lot of talk about the need to shore up first ressponders for dealing with disasters... The National Response Plan was written by the Bush administartion, not Congress and it dealt with scenerios, be them created by bad men or nature, where an area was so overwhelmed by a disaster that the federal governemnt would mobilize...

Then we stared hearing from mayors and governors that the Bush adminstartion was lolli-gaggin' on funding the verioua first response organizations... Might of fact, the National Coucil of Governors complained of the lasck of adequate funding for these programs and departments...

It's easy to say that the state and local governements should have plans and resources to deal with their own problems but reality is, they can't... The federal governemnt, under Bush, has allready shifted more finacial burden on the states over the last 6 years allready and there is a breaking point for those governemnts... That's why there was a National Response Plan to begin with...But if there aren't the federal dollars being invested to impliment such a plan then the plan becomes an accident waiting to happen...

...and thus: Katrinagate...

The Bush adnministration was not properly funding it's own plan...

As for whether or not a fully funded Army Corp's of Engineers maintenance program would have lessened the damage, there really isn't any wholesale agreement among engineers. An engineer, Henter Johnston, of Johston and Associates, for example says "It the Army Corps capabilities for the SELA program had been fully funded, there is no question that Jefferson Parish and New Orleans would be in much better position to remove the water on the streets once the pump satrts working."

But we do know that Bush choze to fund these maintenance programs at 20% and less...

... which, as America's CEO, ha has the constitutiona right to do...

Where the gate comes in is that Bush knew that he was very, very thin on not only funding the componets necessary to impliment the NRP but also on maintaining the levees, all the while going around the country boasting about it being his "job to protect the American people..."

Had he funded them properly then he could have made this claim...

...but he didn't...

Bobert