ibenez wrote:

-- President Bush is requesting $1.5 billion more to help make the levee system in New Orleans, Louisiana, stronger than it was before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.

Ok, this just lowered my opinion of Bush.

Why the F@#$ is the FED spending any money on this? This is the responsibility of LA. I understand there are benefits (oil processing, etc) to the country as whole, but it's not the job of the rest of America to protect LA. from water.

So let's see, we have the raise tax and spend liberals, and now the lower tax and spend republicans.

well, I agree with your assessment of the two parties and their approach to fiscal management.

But I would argue that it IS the responsibility of the FED to protect LA because all of America benefits from that port. LA is not the deriving the only value from goods that pass through it. And as you can see, if another disaster were to strike such a critical piece of infrastructure, it costs us ALL in lost productivity and other expenses. One state can't be expected to shoulder the brunt of this expense nor the risk associated with it. It would be different if we were talking about FL and some flood or hurricane damage, which is factored into insurance coverage. Katrina is not comparable.