The question most prominent in the news lately is: Where are we going to get the money to pay for Katrina?

The Bush people seem to forget that we are throwing almost $6 billion a month into the Iraq garbage pit. Some neocons even go out of their way to specifically exclude Iraq and the military budget as a prelude to answering the question. When they do answer, they talk about taking benefits away from the poor and the elderly, but not the rich and the powerful.

Iraq is, of course, a total failure. The war has separated us from our friends and united our enemies against us. It has caused the needless death of 2000 American soldiers and over 100,000 Iraqis. It has created a recruiting bonanza for al Qaeda, and a civil war in Iraq. It has exacerbated the oil shortage, raised the price of gasoline, and weakened the American economy. Finally, it threatens to unite the Shiites in Iraq and Iran into an anti-American coalition that will be a danger to us for decades.

The military budget, even without Iraq, is already bloated beyond belief. It is tainted by theft and inefficiency and full of weapons and overseas bases that we do not need. At this time there are American military bases in 100 countries throughout the world. In addition, there would be plenty of money to rebuild New Orleans if the Bush administration did not think it was more important to rebuild Baghdad and to conduct an exaggerated “war on terror”. Meanwhile, Bush seems to have totally forgotten about the “war on drugs” which is very real and anything but exaggerated.

Alternative sources of funds could come from rescinding the tax cuts for the wealthy or cutting back on the huge pork package recently passed. There is no real shortage of funds for New Orleans. Unfortunately, there is no real shortage of greed either.
Larry Shaw