Feeling Bullish

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I thought this speech was brilliant in so many ways.

He avoided drawing hard lines in the sand on most of the specific policy proposals he personally favors.

But he drew several lines in the sand on the principles at stake here.

Either you're for participating in the creation and passage of a critically important but imperfect healthcare and health insurance reform bill or you're against it.

Either you're for working with the President to fix problems or you're against it.

He's putting his Presidency on the line.

Because if we can't fix healthcare, with all the general agreement there is on what the problems are, we're not going to be able to fix anything at all.

Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, corporate Democrat enemy number one of liberal progressives for his role watering down healthcare reform in the upper chamber, who stood steadfast against the public option in the face of hundreds of thousands of dollars of ads, said after the speech that it was a "game changer."

He's on board and will work with the President to pass the best bill they can.

Who else we got?

Max Baucus of Montana?

Olympia Snow of Maine?

Susan Collins of Maine?

Mary Landrieu of Louisiana?

George Voinovich of Ohio?

The New Guy of Florida?

What are you all going to do? Who you with? What side are you on?

--

Senator Landrieu's statement after the speech:

“President Obama’s speech tonight was very much needed to keep Congress on track to find a solution for the health care challenges facing our country. It was a sincere and heartfelt effort to unify Democrats and reach out to Republicans to forge common ground and build a broader coalition. Moving this debate forward will take principled compromise and an approach that draws from the very best ideas – regardless of political party.

“The President rightfully focused on the need to lower health care costs for families, businesses and the government. If Congress does not find the resolve to pass health care legislation, people will not be able to afford the insurance they like or get the quality coverage they need, and the federal government will not be able to balance its budget.

“Skyrocketing health insurance premiums and unstable costs have hurt even our most successful small businesses and stifled job growth at a time when our economy needs a jolt. Insurance reform and the new insurance exchanges that the President highlighted are excellent solutions to giving consumers and small businesses greater choice, and with it, competitive prices in a market-based approach.

“The coming weeks and months will produce a spirited debate. But as the President said, the time is now for improving health care. Our current system is unsustainable and is costing our nation more than $2 trillion a year. Louisiana and all of America simply cannot afford the status quo.”

This sounds like she's is ready and willing to vote for healthcare reform even if it includes a public option triggered four years from now with the launch of an insurance exchange and I hope that my interpretation of her position is correct.

It is shameful she hasn't been a strong advocate for healthcare reform. I don't think it's politically risky to contrast oneself with David Vitter's position. I think there is way less downside risk if one is a fierce supporter of healthcare reform but a lot of potential benefit. Conversely, hanging back until the last minute before ultimately voting for healthcare reform, which is what I expect the Senator to do, would seem to be to carry all of the downside risk without any of the potential benefits.

It was cowardly, especially given that she's not even up for reelection for another five years.

--

Congressman Cao told the Times-Picayune he was "relieved" by Obama's assertion that there would be no funding for abortion in the healthcare reform bill.

That's important. At a forum last week in New Orleans East broadcast by WBOK, Cao insisted that there was federal funding for abortion in the bill over the objections of the crowd.

As a result, Tracie Washington posed a hypothetical question to the Congressman, which he clearly answered. Even though the abortion myth has been debunked by nonpartisan fact checkers for weeks prior to the President's speech last night, Washington wondered whether Cao would support the bill if it had everything he wanted but didn't include additional specific language pertaining to abortion.

She asked if abortion was a deal-breaker.

And Cao said yes.

So Congressman Cao's statement to the Times-Picayune is very encouraging. I would strongly urge him to become that rare Republican advocate for healthcare reform from here on out. I don't expect that but I would applaud him loudly if that's what he ends up doing.

A loaded gun on the table

Before I get into this, let me first say that I would agree with some reasonable conservative critiques of the legislative process related to healthcare, that people are not as informed as they need to be on the different proposals on the table. I agree that a sweeping overhaul of the systems that govern 17% of our GDP represents an immense undertaking that should be pursued very deliberately. I agree that President Obama overestimated the capacity of the American public to conceptualize the legislative process. I also agree that the President has done real harm to healthcare reform's chances at passing in a reasonable time frame because of a failure to get out in front of some of the more ridiculous lies and smears. That such a large percentage of Americans now view this bill as an imminent threat to their health instead of an imperfect and evolving improvement to our system is deeply troubling.

The problem is, unfortunately, that I'm not sure what I would have had the President do differently aside from getting out in front of the smears faster. In '93, when Clinton dictated a bill to Congress, they freaked. So this time, Obama decided to let Congress do it's constitutionally-authorized job, only to be criticized for not exercising leadership. So I think we're seeing some real structural problems with our civil society that can't really be reduced to "if only Obama had" or "if only Obama hadn't."

I wonder what is salvageable in the current hysterical climate. Can the President wait for comprehensive bills to reach the floors of the House and Senate before swooping in with his own plan - maybe one that incorporates some GOP standards like TORT reform? Will members of Congress just decide that these town hall mob scenes won't sway them from voting for something really critical for the short term health and long term wealth of the country?

I'm not sure.

I just know that I'm getting increasingly, well, frightened by the hysterical lying about the President's plan - and not just by the outer fringes of the right win - but by members of Congress and by veteran GOP talking heads.

It's not just Sarah Palin claiming the end of life counseling clause (an idea offered by Republican Rep. Charles Boustany of Lousiana, by the way) would result in death panels that would kill off her parents and child; it's also Newt Gingrich refusing to repudiate that remark on national television and instead highlighting by parsing together some obscure old speeches by Rahm Emmanuel's brother.

It's not just Glen Beck joking around about poisoning Nancy Pelosi, it's Representatives actually getting death threats at their offices. There have been fistfights at town halls and at least one instance of someone bringing a concealed gun to a meeting.

These people aren't angry because they don't think the bill being debated by the House Energy Committee doesn't quite strike the right balance between cost controls and extended coverage; it's because they've been heinously mislead to believe that the government is going to make it more difficult to receive coverage than it is now, cut medicare, or worse, send death panels out to kill old people.

A lot of these same people have also been lead to believe that President Obama is not a legitimate elected leader. There is an all-too casual invocation of Nazi Germany and Hitler.

Add it up.

We've had people going out in record numbers since election day to purchase weapons. We've had a growing movement to discredit the President's legitimacy as an elected leader. We have a shameless push to convince people that his moderate initiatives to stabilize the economy represent dictatorial socialism. We now have a transparent effort by GOP leaders - role models for some - to trick already frightened Americans into the belief that healthcare reform will literally bring about some form of medical genocide. And we are also witnessing seemingly unchallenged efforts to invoke the personification of evil (Hitler) in describing what this healthcare bill represents.

It is vile and sickening. It even makes me afraid.

We have really dark history of racism and violence in this country and it appears as though GOP leaders are ginning up unrest amongst the kinds of people who have been alienated because of their resistance to the progress we've made in our society.

And it doesn't seem like anybody in the Republican Party leadership cares about the tipping point.

Rachel Maddow had a really jarring segment on this last Friday that I think everyone should watch in entirety.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

If you can't spare the 15 minutes, skip ahead to 7:55 and watch Rachel talk to Frank Schaeffer, an original founder of the political evangelical movement who has since repudiated his past views.

I was really struck by Mr. Schaeffer's alarm and after sleeping on it for two nights to pass it through the hyperbole scan, well... he's got me quite on guard.

--

If the default position of 100% of the Republican Congress wasn't just to kill whatever healthcare reform proposed by the President or by Congressional Democrats, it would be a lot easier to have a civil discussion about the best way to achieve sustainable reform.

But most elected Republicans and the conservative base aren't at all interested in that.

The GOP is oriented to fight any healthcare reform bill 'by any means necessary.' But it's scarier than that. The GOP is oriented to fight any progress possible.

As Mr. Schaeffer puts it, the GOP strategy is to leave a loaded gun on the table, stop just short of calling it honorable to halt Obama's policies with violence, and walk away.

I'm not sure GOP leaders know how to stop the hideous monster they've reanimated.

This is the America the world fears; not the America the world respects.

--

Organizing For America has unenviable task of trying to cut through all this BS with actual information about the actual reforms being debated in Congress.

They have an office here in New Orleans and they really need our help.

842 Camp St. in the CBD.

There are phone banks every Tuesday and Thursday from 6:00PM to 8:30PM and they canvass on Saturdays.

Their number one priority is to reach individual voters and to attempt to disabuse them of the baseless lies being spread about healthcare reform.

If you want to get involved, e-mail BayasW@dnc.org or call the HQ at 504-302-0802.

Call the senior citizens in your life.

Go to www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck to arm yourself with tools you can use to debunk the lies.

There are lobbyists...

...and there are "lobbyists."

Interesting article about Obama's new ethics rules and public interest advocates.

Stay Stumpin'

This morning Obama held a town hall meeting in Indiana that was sublime. He took a significant number of unfiltered questions from the audience, including one from a self-identified Hannity listener. The USA Today annotates that interaction like this:

A young woman (Tara Nisley) asks the president why some of the people he nominated for key positions weren't trustworthy (because they had failed to pay some taxes). "I'm one of those who think you need to have a beer with Sean Hannity," she adds, referring to the conservative Fox News Channel host.

Some in the crowd object to the woman's question. Obama quiets them, saying it's a legitimate one.

"There are a couple who had problems before they came into my administration," he says. "I think they were honest mistakes and I made sure they were honest mistakes beforehand." That said, if only people who never made mistakes could be in his administration, "you're not going to have anybody taking your jobs."

As for having a beer with Hannity, Obama says he'll take that under advisement. He knows Hannity doesn't like him, the president jokes, "but I'm always good for a beer."

It was powerful live because of the way in which Obama comforted his detractor as the crowd went to boo the question. He celebrated the question's legitimacy quite genuinely, answered it, and finished with some jokes. The whole event was masterful, I thought. We haven't had a sitting President willing to answer unfiltered questions from regular people since when?

One thing that this event and last week's speech to Democratic members of the House have got me thinking about is the relative weakness of the grassroots Left. The stimulus debate has exposed a lot of the cleavages masked by the unity harnessed to put him over John McCain in November. There are those that are freaking out about how bad the stimulus package is and blame Obama's bipartisan strategy for the bill's relative weakness. There are also those that have defended the Obama stimulus plan and bipartisan posturing as part of a longer term strategy. (I look at the blog debate between David Sirota and Al Giordano as generally indicative of some of the disagreements that I've seen.)

Without getting into too much of the back and forth, I tend to agree with Al's view that Obama's campaign is a remarkable achievment for organizers and represents, perhaps more than anything else, an incredible opportunity to build grassroots coalitions that can sustain a long term movement for real progressive change.

But right now, after so many years of backsliding and in the midst of a truly frightening economy, the grassroots Left still really doesn't have what it takes to win in DC. In spite of the immense progress that was the Obama campaign, 'winning' a debate in Washington depends too entirely on the oratory of Obama himself - or the confidence that it inspires.

Over the long term, a progressive movement will only sustain based upon the activities of the grassroots foot soldiers. But in the very short term, in this crisis, Obama has got to make sure he continues to speak to the American people directly, almost as if he were still on the campaign trail. Though he and his communications staff, probably correctly, tend to deemphasize the importance of the 24 hour cable news cycle, too much of the media discourse on the stimulus bill was given to the Herbert Hoover hacks. There is too much uncertainty. People are fearful. I'm anxious myself. When Obama speaks, it helps people more rationally contextualize the first three weeks of his Presidency, the utility of the stimulus package, and the overall long term direction of his administration. When Obama is silent, people are more easily consumed by fear and doubt. The economic situation is that scary and Obama is that powerful. I think he has the responsibility to use the bully pulpit to maintain the public's hope levels.

Ultimately, the Left will never be able to do anything until organizers build that kind of power for the grassroots. I believe that Obama wants to contribute to that kind of movement. For right now, however, I think he has to be careful not to over-delegate the responsibility of selling short-term legislative priorities to the public. That's why I'm so glad he's finally getting out on the stump. I think if he hadn't waited so long, we'd probably have a better stimulus bill overall and a calmer, more fact-based media discourse on the matter.

Over my dead body

hell no

A Special Change

A pubescent America.

It won't be easy, it won't be pretty, but we'll be so much stronger for it.

Infratructure and You: City v. State

Following up from earlier...

Bobby Jindal was early proponent of a possible infrastructure stimulus package. Here's what he had in mind in December:

At a news conference before leaving for the Philadelphia meeting, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he would like to see more federal investment in coastal restoration projects, barrier island recovery efforts and the project to close the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet. He also listed hurricane protection and levee projects in Jean Lafitte and the restoration of a Charity Hospital medical complex in New Orleans as priorities.

"There are literally billions of dollars that can be pushed through the pipeline that have already been allocated by Congress that have yet to come to our communities, that have yet to come to our state, " Jindal said, before leaving for the summit with Obama.

"I think it's unprecedented for a newly elected president to sit down with Democratic and Republican governors, " Jindal said. "We're going to have the opportunity to share with him what's going on in our states and make some recommendations to his administration so they can hit the ground running."

The Times-Picayune made it seem as if Jindal would be making hurricane protection and coastal restoration the centerpiece of Louisiana's ask. We also know that the funding shortfall for the LSU/VA hospital development is a big priority.

Jindal has remained in control of the state's stimulus strategy. He held a press conference announcing the state's priorities last weekend. The article only briefly summarizes what might be in Louisiana's request but there are some interesting things to infer. For one, many of the things that Jindal has put on the table are not actual infrastructure projects. In no order, some examples of that from the article include:

- aid to farmers who experiences losses from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike

- "removal of red tape for local governments negotiating with [FEMA]"

- "changes to the Medicaid financing formula for states affected by disasters"

For flood protection, the article alludes to the Governor's desire to address the issue but the only concrete measure that gets fleshed out is the long-requested rule change that would mandate the Army Corps to use materials collected from dredging for existing coastal restoration projects.

-

So what is actually concrete?

Highways. We can build highways.

"I'll make the case that projects like I-49 north should be a priority for his administration.

I will personally be advocating to President-elect Obama that this project be included in the stimulus package that the federal government is hoping to get done by Jan. 20 at the latest next year."

In fact, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development has been hard at work in anticipation of a federal infrastructure bill since summer.

DOTD started compiling a list in August - three months before the presidential election - because "I assumed that whoever was elected president was going to have to do something like this," Ankner said. "But I didn't think it was going to be this big."

Because of DOTD's planning, it was one of the first states to submit a proposal and one of only three states that included a separate plan for improving ports and airports, too.

The list of projects comes out to a price tag of $1.314 billion. But Secretary Ankner is setting lower expectations:

“I think $400 million is a good number for us to think about,” Ankner said.

We know that finishing the I-49 project around Shreveport and renovating I-12 and I-10 around Baton Rouge are major state priorities. In the metro area, we know that there are projects already underway on I-10 in Jefferson Parish that have made it on the list. What's going to be left over for New Orleans?

If you browse the actual DODT list, next to nothing. Though measures improving highways in Jefferson Parish will have a direct impact on Orleans Parish, the absence of money for New Orleans is striking. There's $7 million proposed for improving an access road at Louis Armstrong International and $10 million proposed for improving the Crescent City Connection ferry terminals. The DOTD also proposes spending $30 million to help the RTA do "preventative maintenance."

Part of the issue, I suppose, is that only a small percentage of the projects in the city are "shovel-ready." The Obama administration apparently favors projects where construction can begin immediately and be completed within the next 2-3 years. This, they say, will maximize the extent to which federal spending stimulates economic growth over the short term.

I've argued that those strings shouldn't be attached when it comes to allocating resources to New Orleans because of the last administration's broken promises and our city's sobering list of imminent needs. Given the political opportunity, it makes sense to approach the infrastructure stimulus as an opportunity to secure money that might not be available at any other time. Whatever limits the Congress or the President want to attach to how that money is allocated by local officials are more than fine with me. The important thing is getting the money through Congress, especially since it isn't at all clear when or if New Orleans might get its own turn at the top of the docket or if there will be any political will to allocate resources when or if that time comes.

In fact, I have recently learned that New Orleans, the Regional Planning Commission, and the RTA are indeed drafting their own list of smart-growth transportation infrastructure projects totalling a very large number. It will be very interesting to see how the Louisiana Congressional delegation reconciles competing lists.

Other state agencies will be submitting their own recommendations for stimulus dollars. We should be careful to monitor those also.

I don't like this process at all. There is very little information in the public domain and it doesn't seem like the local professional media is particularly curious.

Am I overstating the local implications of the stimulus? Why isn't all of this a much bigger deal in the papers?

Infratructure and You: Stimulating Strategies

I've been interested in the Louisiana implications of the mega economic stimulus package currently being negotiated in Congress. I think it's a very very big deal and believe it's something to which we need to be paying better attention.

When was the last time the federal government sunk so much money into infrastructure projects?

Louisiana and especially New Orleans have incredible infrastructure needs that directly impact the basic premise of 'recovery.' If this state doesn't quickly reimagine it's transportation and hurricane protection blueprint, arguments for rebuilding hinging on long and medium term economic viability go completely out the window. SE Louisiana simply will not remain a sustainable place in which to invest (whether we're talking about starting a business or purchasing a home) unless some of our major infrastructure flaws are fixed. The case for levees is indisputable. To a certain extent, even our social needs (housing, literacy, health care, education, criminal justice reform) are more easily understood. Less often articulated are our needs related to sewerage, the power grid, regional rail, and municipal transit - other areas in which SE Louisiana remains far behind other metropolitan competitors.

It has been many years since these types of projects have been on the table in Washington. This is a rare opportunity. It is not obvious to me that Louisiana will have many other chances to come away with globs of money as sizable as what might be possible right now. Barack Obama made some campaign promises on Gulf Coast Recovery but I'm not sensing much Congressional urgency in terms of allocating additional resources this way. The President has said that there will be no pork projects in this stimulus bill. But if there's a little extra money sprinkled into Louisiana for projects critical to issues of hurricane recovery and basic regional sustainability (and therefore, national security), well I don't see why we have to call that pork. It's not as if Congressman Cao and Senator Vitter are negotiating an extra $2 million allocation for the New Orleans Madam Museum. We're the poorest city in the poorest state in the poorest region and then we got hit with a bunch hurricanes and a federal flood. We need and deserve a little extra attention. That's how progressive values work.

So what is Louisiana's strategy for shaking loose that extra coin?

More later.

Hurricane Protection and the Infrastructure Stimulus

Oyster has a must-read post today about Bush administration efforts to refuse SE Louisiana the critical levees it needs. During the Presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to change that. Obama has a full fact-sheet on Katrina, it's worth your while to read (pdf).

As president, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

So what does that mean for hurricane protection?

As president, Barack Obama will ensure that New Orleans has a levee and pumping system to protect the city against a 100-year storm by 2011, with the ultimate goal of protecting the entire city from a Category 5 storm. Obama and Biden will also direct revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling to increased coastal hurricane protection.

--

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will help the Gulf Coast restore the wetlands, marshes and barrier islands that are critical to tamping down the force of hurricanes. They will work with local governments to develop the best strategies for protecting and expanding wetlands.

These promises are vague. We have to pin the Obama administration down. Certainly there are many angry legislators willing to speak out over the Bush administration obstacle course but I have not seen much evidence that our elected officials will be attempting to do force the immediate action we need using the infrastructure stimulus bill. This strikes me as a missed opportunity.

I also have not seen much evidence that national progressive bloggers or mainstream journalists are particularly interested in pinning the administration down on hurricane protection infrastructure. I haven't seen many outside of SE Louisiana particularly willing to put effort into promoting issues related to hurricane protection in even a general sense.

So that leaves...

Us?

The issue of hurricane and flood protection is fundamental to the most basic sustainability of this region in the short, medium, and long term. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to inject our issue into the national conversation about the infrastructure stimulus bill?

In the mean time, I've floated the idea of flood protection for New Orleans to the Citizen's Briefing Book at Change.gov. The way it works is that if an idea is popular, Obama people respond to it. Failing that, it probably helps to put New Orleans issues out there to see how much they resonate with the mainstream liberals that presumably populate the Change.gov community.

There are only a few ideas on that site that directly relate to New Orleans. The one I've created appears to have the most points but that's not saying very much at all.

We need to force the issue. This little experiment takes all of 45 seconds of your time.

"Vote Up" Flood Protection for New Orleans

And tell your friends? Yeah, tell your friends.

Easy Internet Activism Experiment

I've only casually browsed Change.gov, the grassroots arm of Barack Obama's transition. The Citizen's Briefing Book is pretty cool and at the very least, provides a forum through which even 'unconventional' ideas can be democratically evaluated and injected into the discourse. For instance, users have been enthusiastically promoting different suggestions related to the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana or other efforts to drastically reform drug policy. While it is unlikely that Obama administration will drastically liberalize drug policy, at least his surrogates were challenged to defend the status-quo in that regard. There was a minor media boomlet involving those issues, all because of the voting behavior of users of change.gov.

I wonder if New Orleanians can use this tool to circumvent our own feckless leadership.

Lately, I've become extremely troubled by our state leadership's priorities as Congress begins to negotiate an infrastructure stimulus package that could cost over $1 trillion. Early media reports are signaling that Governor Bobby Jindal and the Louisiana congressional delegation have aimed for a shockingly low share of that money, something in the order of $1 billion. I've been trying to dig into this and from what I can figure out, the majority of that request involves housing program deadline extensions and extra money to make up for the funding shortfall needed to begin construction on the controversial LSU/VA hospital redevelopment.

Why wouldn't our elected leaders aim a little bit higher than that? At the very least, a large request would highlight the forgotten needs of the region. How does Louisiana rank nationally on education, public health, incarceration rates, literacy, poverty, infant mortality, etc?

But forget all of that, even. What about our basic physical security?

What about Category 5 levees?

We need 'em. They ain't asking for 'em.

So let's try something.

Here, I've made a pitch to the new administration using the Citizen's Briefing Book. I don't get into the specifics of levee protection vs. seawalls vs. coastal restoration, but I try to briefly pitch the general issue of flood protection for New Orleans.

Right now, the leading issue is high speed rail with more than 5800 points.

One vote = 10 points.

Real Flood Protection for New Orleans under 100 points. So we have a ways to go.

But why not give this a whirl and see if things snowball?

Online political mischief, from the comfort of your desk!

Real Flood Protection for New Orleans NOW!!!!

And if you're browsing around and see another important New Orleans-related suggestion in the briefing book. Throw up a link in the comments section and I'll click-vote for it as well.

Comforting

I've been a little nervous lately about how things are going with the infrastructure stimulus.

But this is great to hear. It's a change.

New Orleans and the Obama Administration: We Won't Receive What We Don't Ask For

Deon Roberts of the City Business blog tossed out an interesting concept for a blog post recently where he examined who was to blame for the slow pace of New Orleans' recovery.

(I've never met Deon Roberts, I've heard that he's a great guy and was a decent reporter when he stayed on beat, but his blog leaves a lot to be desired. He never seems to actually analyze or interpret, he just pastes quotes from articles and summarizes.)

Anyway, in his two part post, Roberts introduces quotes from different local and federal officials blaming each other for the slow pace of recovery.

Though the quotes apply to specific recovery-related programs, it's worthwhile to consider them in the context of the big picture because I think we can create some pretty interesting hypotheses to explain the different layers of our recovery's slowness.

On one hand, you have Doug O'Dell, the Federal Recovery Czar. The AP summarized his view of things: (emphasis mine)

The Bush administration says more than $126 billion has been earmarked for Gulf Coast rebuilding following the 2005 hurricanes. Retired Maj. Gen. Doug O'Dell, who began in the job earlier this year, said he never believed the pace of recovery was about lack of resources and he said Thursday he couldn't identify any need for additional federal funds immediately.

Mayor Nagin, on the other hand, recently ordered FEMA officials out of his office: (emphasis mine)

"I had FEMA in my office yesterday and almost, kind of, threw them out," the mayor said. "They're just not aggressively helping us."

Mayor Nagin is correct that FEMA has routinely shortchanged the city for different recovery-related reimbursements. But let's also recall how our local state and municipal governments have tended to prioritize economic development over recovery. (Using CDBG money on the LSU/VA project and Reinventing the Crescent instead of for affordable housing or main street redevelopment, for instance.)

But let's see if we can zoom out a little bit.

The quotes are indicative of the long-standing disconnect between local and federal officials dating back to the storm itself. Our local officials have tended to blame the slow pace of recovery on federal red tape. Federal officials, in turn, put it back on the laps of local officials, claiming that funds have been approved and are ready to be spent.

Our local officials complain about FEMA shortchanging reimbursements for things like the rehabilitation of Charity and for slowing down the blight removal process, etc. Federal officials point the mirror back at state officials for the failure to do things like build Katrina Cottages or quickly distribute money through the Road Home program.

I'm sure one could parse out who's right and who's wrong about reimbursements and existing aid programs, etc. But would solving these typical complaints about the programs that were designed to address short term rebuilding do anything for our long term recovery?

Even if local and federal officials were working harmoniously to make these programs hum, would New Orleans' long term prospects be appreciably less pessimistic?

I'm not so sure. It would seem to me that if FEMA capitulated to all of Mayor Nagin's reimbursement requests, the only things that would be different would be the estimate for Charity and the speed with which FEMA agrees to repay for other demolitions. That would give us half of a hospital that local officials don't want to rebuild anyway and a bunch more empty lots.

Let's also go back to O'Dell's apparent inability to identify the need for any more immediate additional federal funds. One could take a look at his statement and think that he must be disengaged and unaware of our community's needs. However, I don't think that's the case. Recall his poignant criticism of the leadership of Mayor Nagin and Ed Blakely from last August. His position has been consistent - that until the city and state can intelligently spend what has already been allocated, then the federal government will not distribute additional funds.

(You may disagree with the Bush administration's decision to take a hands-off approach to local recovery failures, but that policy has been remarkably consistent. Replacing Blanco with Jindal did not appreciably alter federal policy, for instance.)

The problem seems to be that our local officials don't know what kind of help to ask for.

The argument that the federal government is failing Louisiana would be a lot more credible if local officials had a long list of things that the federal government was refusing to fund. The squabbles over FEMA reimbursement amounts are small potatoes compared to the overall needs of the region.

--

Consider that Obama is pledging an unprecedented trillion dollar stimulus package for infrastructure projects. Yet, if you read this AP article, it would seem that Louisiana is woefully unprepared to request a game-changing share:

Louisiana's post-Katrina wish list for the next Congress and incoming Obama administration, lengthened by 2008 hurricanes Gustav and Ike, boiled down in a transition brief to one essential message: Don't forget us.

While progress has been made since Katrina and Rita lashed Louisiana in 2005, "our state still suffers an extreme housing crisis with affordable rental property hard to come by and billions of housing and infrastructure repairs yet to be completed," the Louisiana Recovery Authority said in the brief dated Dec. 8 and which the LRA provided a copy of last week.

The state's wish list for the Katrina and Rita aftermath include an extension of federal disaster housing assistance, including rental subsidies, set to expire March 1.

It also includes a call to push back by two years, to December 2012, a deadline to finish housing projects benefiting from tax credits due to the sour national economy. And there's also a call for establishment of a "blight removal fund" to help speed cleanup of thousands of derelict properties that are seen as stalling reinvestment in some devastated communities.

Louisiana also may seek a congressional appropriation if it can't come to more favorable terms with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the level of Katrina damage to New Orleans' former public hospital for the poor, Charity. The state believes it's due $492 million; FEMA's offered $150 million.

A few things about this. First of all, the LRA's insistence that the federal government help the state address the massive affordable housing crisis is straight-up laughable given all of the state and municipal policies put in place since the storm that have directly limited the construction of affordable housing. The other things on the LRA wish list are deadline extensions and a better reimbursement figure from FEMA for Charity. That's just not a very ambitious target for the nation's neediest state.

It might explain why the AP encapsulated the Louisiana pitch to the Obama administration as a helpless and flailing "don't forget us."

Have we not drawn up even preliminary plans for any of the following?

Replacing the energy grid

Rail service along the coast

Category Five levees, sea walls, wetlands restoration

Comprehensive metro streetcar system

Granted, the first phase of any Obama stimulus package would fund projects that are immediately ready for construction. But there simply aren't a trillion dollars worth of projects around the country that are "shovel-ready." So I wonder why we haven't put forth targets for the second, third, and forth phases of the stimulus.

Obama transition officials are already reaching out to states and municipalities so that a stimulus bill is submitted to Congress immediately after he takes office. I'd be willing to wager that when they sat down with the numbers from New Orleans and Louisiana, they called back our local officials and whoever else in the planning community and stated somewhat incredulously something along the lines of: "you guys aren't asking for nearly enough."

It will be quite interesting to see how our officials scramble for New Orleans' share of the stimulus pie over the next several months.