Advocacy of slow tracking
Culver City News puts it this way:
As Katrina's flood waters recede, government contractors are flowing into the Gulf Coast and reaping billions of dollars in pre-bid, limited bid, and sometimes no-bid contracts....
CorpWatch cites the following:
"You are likely to see the equivalent of war profiteering -- disaster profiteering," said Danielle Brian, director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit government spending watchdog group. She notes that Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of FEMA is now a lobbyist and consultant to both the Shaw Group and Halliburton. (Melissa Norcross, a Halliburton spokeswoman, said Allbaugh has not, since he was hired, "consulted on any specific contracts that the company is considering pursuing, nor has he been tasked by the company with any lobbying responsibilities.")
Many, including Senator Richard Durbin, "are worried because we hear about no-bid contracts in the Katrina areas going to the same companies that they went to in Iraq without the kind of accountability that we have to demand," the Illinois Democrat told National Public Radio, a public radio network in the US....
In Iraq, limited accountability, corruption, massive cost overruns, and devastating failures fed the chaotic mess that has followed the 2003 fall of Baghdad. Nonetheless, the largest Katrina contracts have been won by many of the same politically connected companies that oversaw that failed reconstruction. And it is perhaps no coincidence, since many of the same people in the Army Corps of Engineers are awarding them–and in much the same manner: as open-ended, no- or hastily bid contracts with guaranteed profit margins.
And for every Halliburton, there's a Floyd:
Last week, police officers found a treasure trove of food, drinks, chainsaws and roof tarps in the home of Cedric Floyd, chief administrative officer for the Jefferson Parish suburb of Kenner. Mr. Floyd is one of several city workers who will likely be charged with pilfering....
Louisiana ranks third in the nation in the number of elected officials per capita convicted of crimes (Mississippi takes top prize). In just the past generation, the Pelican State has had a governor, an attorney general, three successive insurance commissioners, a congressman, a federal judge, a state Senate president and a swarm of local officials convicted. Last year, three top officials at Louisiana's Office of Emergency Preparedness were indicted on charges they obstructed a probe into how federal money bought out flood-prone homes. Last March the Federal Emergency Management Agency ordered Louisiana to repay $30 million in flood-control grants it had awarded to 23 parishes.
So, how many of these abuses would be solved by "slow tracking" the approval of aid, and the disbursement of aid funds? It doesn't matter, since decisions such as this are not made in economic terms, but in political terms. Here's what Pardon My English had to say about the decision making process and extensive review that went into the Katrina relief bill:
One of Iowa's U.S. Representatives...Steve King, was one of the dreaded evil eleven "conservative Republicans" to vote against the bloated Katrina aid bill. The no vote was largely symbolic -- of COURSE this aid bill was going to pass -- 99.9% of Washington politicians are more interested in doing the politically expedient thing, not the fiscally responsible thing. But every single one of these eleven Republicans are taking it on the chin -- wrongly -- for their vote against this massive overkill. All these folks were doing is making the case that we need to have more accountability for what's being spent and give a little thought about how we're going to spend it.
There are hundreds of thousands of people displaced and hurting as a result of this horrible natural disaster and no one is saying that we shouldn't be funding FEMA aid for them. But all indications are that this money is just going to be spent for the sake of spending it....
Don't be ridiculous, you say. Certainly the people who are complaining about no-bid contracts wouldn't be targeting these eleven, would they? Well, they would:
This is a list of the 11 Republicans who voted “No” on the bill that Congress approved and Bush signed to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. These are the cold-hearted bastards who would willingly see Americans die for the sake of more tax cuts for the wealthy. It is the moral duty of all Americans to defeat these scum. Donate to defeat the Katrina 11!
What'cha doing, Willis?
These eleven congressmen, Republican conservatives all, just voted against the $51 billion package (H. R. 3673) for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Horrible human beings, all.
Perhaps these web sites are funded by Halliburton? Interesting twist.
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