Very good news:
I still can’t overcome my ingrained skepticism to anything coming out of this (or any) administration. But this looks like a much-needed boost to the entire Gulf Coast region. Businesses and homeowners have been waiting for a signal such as this before re-investing in New Orleans.
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Hey, Bart–
I’m always skeptical too, but this one seemed to me just to be a pretend victory for our guys. I’ve read figures of $20-40 billion to get the levees right and rebuild the wetlands. Any chance everyone is trying to convince us it’s good when it really isn’t much? Hope we can get it done, but it’ll be a long haul.
Glad you’ll be getting power (fairly) soon. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you guys from here.
–Elliott
As they say, the devil is in the details. In this case, it’s another blatant act of bait and switch. Large chunks of the appropriation passed by the Senate on Dec. 21 to help the Gulf Coast are earmarked for things like repairing NASA facilities at Michoud and Stennis, and fixing highways. By the time you drill down to what is being appropriated for hurricane protection, you’re looking at a little more than $2 billion. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, the Corps says it needs $3.1 billion to fix what we have already, and estimates another $15 billion to give New Orleans Category 5 protection. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it ain’t over yet.