Bill Minor recently visited the Coast and described some of what he saw:
Ten minutes and a mile or so from the jangling slot machines of the pristinely restored row of casinos, you come upon the post-Katrina wasteland of East Biloxi where working-class neighborhoods stood two years ago and now, block-after-block, just gaping holes.He then gave perspective on how the money could have been spent:
That's the painful dichotomy of Mississippi Gulf Coast "recovery." Some of our leaders like to say it's going well and that we just need to be patient.
Dr. Marianne Hill, senior economist for the state's Center for Policy Research and Planning, makes an intriguing assessment. She says that the $5 billion that Congress has made available to Mississippi for housing actually could cover the cost of rebuilding or repairing the entire 39,000 coastal area homes and rental units that received major damage.
Using pre-Katrina values of both owner-occupied units as well as rental units, Hill estimates that the cost to rebuild or repair should not exceed $3.5 billion.
So with the desperate need to provide hurricane-safe, affordable housing in the coastal area and available federal aid being channeled through the governor's office, why hasn't more genuine recovery progress been made other than the renewed glitz and jangle on Casino row?
Bill Minor's Aricle
The answer to the question of why do the casinos look wonderful and half of the working folks houses and property still look like Fallujah, Iraq, is because the casinos contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to Barbour's political machine, funneled through the Republican Governors Association, and the working class folks of the coast don't. Barbour could care less about working people in Mississippi, he cares about BIG BUSINESS that pays him to play!
ReplyDeleteI understand that Barbour demanded that if he brought casinos on land that each company owed the Republican Governor's Association $100,000. I think we've seen that happen.
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