The New Orleans and Louisiana Question

Louisiana politicos, national and state, want 1/4 trillion dollars just GIVEN to them to "rebuild" the state, they say. Should we, the taxpayers, permit this?

That there is devastation, there can be no question. The ordinary response to damage is to rebuild, incorporating lessons learned. However, the politicos from down there are asking for roads (they never spent the money they voted for them years ago), all sorts of new businesses which were never in place before Hurricane Katrina, completely unrelated opportunistic scam-like projects, and the unquestioning freedom to use this money from the U. S. Treasury in any way they want.

Louisiana and New Orleans are cloacas of corruption, and everybody knows it. They have done very little right and corruption-free over their existence. Why would they change now? Would not "strings-free" money be just another get-rich-scheme for the already corrupt? Never forget that Louisiana and New Orleans proclaim themselves as "poor," despite vast oil and gas reserves, refineries, and national and international commerce of staggering wealth. Wny are Louisiana and New Orleans poor? The answer is obvious.

Take New Orleans. Parts of the city have been under 20 feet of water since the levee breaches and "overspills." Other parts have been under 3 feet of water. What do these numbers reflect? First, New Orleans is an average of seven feet BELOW SEA LEVEL, and it continues to sink. New Orleans is a giant swimming pool, with a deep end. That is for starters.

New Orleans is a bums' paradise, with a sea of people living on the dole without a shred of personal responsibility. It, like Louisiana, is a monument to the leftism of the Democrat Party.

Rebuild a bowl below sea level and refill it with bums? Not on my dollar, thank you.

Politicos rush to the cameras and microphones to proclaim that New Orleans MUST BE REBUILT. To hear them speak, you would think this is the 11th Commandment, coming directly from the Burning Bush. Tell me, please: why must New Orleans be rebuilt? Why recommit all the same mistakes? Is this smart? Rebuilding in any respect must be questioned and requestioned, in florid detail.

I have been to New Orleans, just as many others have been, and on a number of occasions. To me, New Orleans is a despoiled sot pot of stinks and low life humanity, with a totally overrated French Quarter, a few good restaurants which could function quite well elsewhere, and the stench of stale whiskey, stale people, stale tobacco, and filthy wash water settled like a chronic fog over Bourbon Street. What seemed beautiful were the old homes and pockets of the city far away from the "main attractions." Other than these plantations, the rest of the city might well benefit from being razed, overfilled with dredge spoils to raise the level ABOVE sea level, and then receive construction selectively .

The question of whether the U. S. government, using our taxpayer funds, should rebuild the state and city deserves the answer of "NO!" Should New Orleans be rebuilt as well as other parts of the state? The answer is: If the free market deems this to be a good investment.

Giving money to the state and city asks for the waste and corruption to continue. Government bonds and debts that citizens of the city and state carry is one aspect of the answer. The rest involves capitalism and private charities. These take the burden off the coerced taxpayer.

Furthermore, market factors will regard the state and city as an investment, for making money, hopefully lots of money. With this rising tide, all boats will rise as well. This is the moral, thus the practical thing to do.

And, if sleezy Bourbon Street and the "projects," as well as scads of other aspects of New Orleans do not get rebuilt, the market would have finished the job the waters of Lake Pontchartrain started. Instead of a bowl, New Orleans could become, over the years, a real gem.

Any "grants" to anyone down there by the government simply indentures the rest of us citizens to something suboptimal at best, and probably a lot worse. That would be immoral, thus totally impractical.

No one wants humans and animals to suffer, and those needs have been met and are being met beautifully, and met best by the private organizations as well as the faith-based charities. Let's not let the government muck it all up.