The president, earlier this week, articulated an approach to Gulf Coast reconstruction that emphasized the importance of local citizens and officials rebuilding the communities as they see fit.
“My attitude is this: The people of New Orleans can design the vision; the people of New Orleans can lay out what New Orleans ought to look like in the future; and the federal government will help. The people of Louisiana can lay out their vision of what Louisiana will look like, and the federal government can help. I think the best policy is one in which the federal government doesn’t come down and say, here’s what your city will look like. The best policy is one where the local folks say, here’s what we want our city to look like and let’s work together to achieve that vision.”
So far, so good. The problem is, no one on the right seems to agree with the approach the president described. Bill Berkowitz, for example, noted today that the Heritage Foundation has been watching the Gulf Coast closely — and it has a few suggestions.
Just as the Iraq War has been a Petri Dish for the neoconservative foreign policy agenda, rebuilding the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina could prove to be the mother of all testing grounds for a passel of active Heritage Foundation’s domestic policy initiatives.
Washington, DC’s most prestigious and influential right wing think tank has been rocking and rolling since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s not just the Heritage Foundation.
Congressional Republicans, backed by the White House, say they are using relief measures for the hurricane-ravaged Gulf coast to achieve a broad range of conservative economic and social policies, both in the storm zone and beyond.
Some new measures are already taking shape. In the past week, the Bush administration has suspended some union-friendly rules that require federal contractors pay prevailing wages, moved to ease tariffs on Canadian lumber, and allowed more foreign sugar imports to calm rising sugar prices. Just yesterday, it waived some affirmative-action rules for employers with federal contracts in the Gulf region.
Now, Republicans are working on legislation that would limit victims’ right to sue, offer vouchers for displaced school children, lift some environment restrictions on new refineries and create tax-advantaged enterprise zones to maximize private-sector participation in recovery and reconstruction. Yesterday, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would offer sweeping protection against lawsuits to any person or organization that helps Katrina victims without compensation.
“The desire to bring conservative, free-market ideas to the Gulf Coast is white hot,” says Rep. Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican who leads the Republican Study Group, an influential caucus of conservative House members. “We want to turn the Gulf Coast into a magnet for free enterprise. The last thing we want is a federal city where New Orleans once was.”
Remember, just three days ago, the president said the last thing people have to worry about is folks in Washington trying to “design the vision” from thousands of miles away. Just 48 hours later, however, Edwin Meese, the former Reagan administration attorney general, and a bunch of right-wing lawmakers, got together in a 40-member study group in DC to draft “free-market solutions” that can — and, in their minds, should — serve as a literal blueprint for the region’s future.
Mrs. Carpetbagger plays a computer game called SimCity. It’s more or less a city-planning simulation where you can design residential, commercial, and industrial parts of an area however you’d like. Set the tax rates, alter the physical landscape, create parks, build highways, etc. There’s no real ideology too it; the player just designs a city the way he or she wants it to be. Apparently, it’s rather addictive.
The Gulf Coast, however, is not a game. New Orleans is not a blank canvas waiting for a right-wing artist. The people who have called this area home are not characters in a conservative fantasy.
“They’re going back to the playbook on issues like tort reform, school vouchers and freeing business from environmental rules to achieve ideological objectives they haven’t been able to get in the normal legislative process,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D., Ill.)
Note to the right: leave these poor people alone. They’ve been through enough.