On Thursday, the President made a prime time speech about saving the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. He made several proposals that will require a great deal of money to rebuild the area but he made no mention how this would be funded. Already I hear Republicans saying there must be some “offsets”. I wonder who will be affected by these “offsets”, the middle class? There are several things he could do, he could reduce the cost of the Iraq war by bringing our military home, he could rescind the tax cuts he already gave the rich and he could prevent the repeal of the Estate Tax (a cost that would exceed $138 billion, according to Sen. John McCain).
The President spoke of a mix of government and private companies to do the rebuilding. I wonder if Halliburton or other politically connected companies are going to get no-bid contracts. Will the companies chosen pay living wages? The President has already suspended the Davis-Bacon act that would guarantee workers be paid at the prevailing rate for the area.
I also wonder how much money and how many lives could have been saved if the levees had been fixed instead of cutting the budget of the Army Corps of Engineers in order to give tax breaks to the rich.
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