Tin Roof Blowdown

I'm angry today. Not Andy Rooney whining about little things such as people talking through movies angry. No it's more like I'd love to take someone by the scruff of the neck and wop them on the ass angry. I'm reading James Lee Burke's latest "The Tin Roof Blowdown". His fictional character, Police Officer from New Iberia, Louisiana Dave Robicheaux, is showing us the aftermath of Katrina from his viewpoint and it isn't pretty. My anger comes from the knowledge that it isn't much better two plus years later.

But from this anger comes a solution to the problem that frustrates me and most people today. It's the old, how come we are spending billions in Iraq trying to build a stable society and New Orleans and our Gulf coast still sits in ruins waiting for the greatest country in the world with a free capitalistic economy to fix it. If I was a citizen of Iraq, I would be questioning the capability of a country that tore my country apart, to reassemble it again, if that country could not take care of it self.

It has become a cliche to say that it is disgraceful that the Gulf Coast is still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina. People are getting into that mind set, which I'm sure the current administration was counting on, that nothing can be done about it. Wrong! My suggestion for the solution is entirely doable and I am confident will produce results faster and fairer than any solution Bushwacked can come up with in the few months of his disastrous reign remaining.

What we have to do is reconvene the United States Congress, The Louisiana Legislature and move them along with the President of the United States including his cabinet, Officials of the Louisiana State Government and New Orleans City officials to the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. While we're at it since many of the candidates for president would be stuck there, anyone who wants to be the next president of the United States should volunteer to move there. if they don't go they can't run.

They must live in existing homes and work in existing buildings that have been abandon by the owners. If the owners can be established they must pay them rent comparable to their own residence in their home community. (Can you see the cash flow possibilities?) If they can't find existing homes they must reside in FEMA trailers. As to the public buildings and offices that will need to be built, they must be of a quality that will last 100 years. No prefabs or temporary buildings will be allowed

Our politician legislative guests can not go to the French quarter for meals or entertainment more than once a month. They can not go home, however their families can live with them. In short, they must live, work and recreate in the Ninth Ward until such time that the Gulf Coast has the resources and the wherewith all to recover on their own.

It's one thing to pass bills of intention and it's another to fund them. It's one thing to set aside funds for a project and another to oversee the results of the spending in order to ascertain success based on the intentions of the legislature. What our government has done is what politicians always decry as wasteful and that is throw a bunch of money at this problem. What they got for the investment is little or no results to show for it.

Trust me, if they have to live in the squalor, things will be fixed. The Levees will be built to withstand the eventualities. The schools will be funded in order to provide education. The cops will patrol and the judges will be putting the bad guys in jail.

And as far as business is concerned, it's easy. All contracts for rebuilding would be let to local contractors, who hire local people. All property taxes would be suspended until the property could be proven to fit for use with all utilities and infrastructure restored. (Streets, sewers, water, electrical and gas service)

And don't worry about the prohibition on the French Quarter for politicians and their families, the press, that will be living with this story, will take care of them to start with. The lobbyists will have to move in from Washington and that will kick up profits bon sweet. Than there will be the tourists. Can you imagine the number of people that will pay to see their representatives having to work in that environment. They will have to expand the airport.

Once they get this problem solved, we might want to get them on planes and move them to Iraq. If stability in the middle east is so important maybe having the bulls eye on their backs will help getting to some commonsense solutions to the problems, so they and our soldiers can come home. Look for early abandonment of the we have to stay until Iraq is stable theory