Geoff Pender on Katrina Money

In the Sun Herald:

It's enough money to buy two average-sized houses for each of the 65,000 families in Mississippi who lost their homes.

And, there would be enough left over to buy each family a brand-new Honda Accord to drive between their two $166,000 houses. That's the EX-L, V-6 four-door sedan Accord, with all the extras and navigation, not a base model.

It's enough to give each man, woman and child in the three southernmost counties $68,500 apiece. Or, to look at it another way, federal Katrina spending in Mississippi will cost each person in the United States about $94.

Just the $1 billion the U.S. Government Accountability Office estimates FEMA lost to "fraud, waste and abuse" within a short time after the storm would be enough to cover the city of Waveland's budget for 143 years, or buy more than 6,000 new houses.

"Holy" Haley Barbour, the patron saint of delusional Mississippi Republicans, has been said to have created everything under the sun. While largely ignoring Senator Lott or Congressmen Taylor and Thompson, his boosters have largely given him credit for the Katrina money. Well, with all this money spent, where is it? I personally received a little in student aid after my father ended up in the hospital after the storm but it didn't come close to this and I know folks who are still trying to sort everything out and repair or rebuild. Where is the success Haley? We could have done a lot more with those billions of dollars.