GOVERNMENT WASTE

- LOUISIANA -

Date	Individual / State Agency	Who, What, Where?
10/01/05	Levee Boards	Huge Army Corps of Engineers Projects in Louisiana Loaded With “Pork” It has been revealed by the Washington Post that the Army Corps of Engineers had launched a massive $748 million project around the levees in New Orleans, prior to the onslaught of hurricane Katrina. However, the primary purpose of the funding was to build a huge new lock for the New Orleans Industrial Canal to accommodate an increase in barge traffic. There’s one minor little problem with the entire story - barge traffic has been decreasing. Building a new lock system has been fought by irate citizens, and cited by environmentalists and taxpayer advocates as the fifth worst boondoggle in Army Corps of Engineers history. On top of that, rampant public corruption was “business as usual” in New Orleans long before Hurricane Katrina. Senator David Vitter requested a federal investigation into improper practices of a number of public utilities, including the New Orleans Levee Board, and a new Task Force was to have been initiated in the Baton Rouge office, beginning in July 2004. The local politicians have screamed that the federal government did not allocate sufficient funds for Louisiana’s canal and levee projects, but the reality is that Louisiana has received far more money than any other state. Some of the $748 million was spent to keep New Orleans dry, but millions of dollars have gone to “pork” projects demanded by Louisiana’s congressional delegation. The big question is, “which cronies of the politicians got rich from these deals?” One of the projects was a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia that consistently failed a cost-benefit analysis. In other words, the amount of money spent would never be returned in actual revenue. But State Senator Mary Landreau (Democrat – New Orleans) managed to quietly slip the allocation into the emergency spending bill for Iraq. The Army Corps also spent millions of dollars dredging infrequently used waterways, while the levees around New Orleans received scant attention. Overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's over the same period of time.
12/01/05	Legislature	What Hurricane Katrina? While much of Louisiana was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, a Louisiana state panel agree to spend $45 million on construction projects ranging from health labs to water wells to a sports complex to livestock facilities. Maybe Hurricane Katrina was just a figment of our imagination? State Senator Jay Dardenne (Republican, Baton Rouge) said, “What you do in the next few minutes is going to reverberate throughout this country as to what Louisiana’s priorities are.” Perhaps the legislature wasn’t aware that the state’s tax base has been decimated, and the governor, Kathleen Blanco, has ordered a spending and hiring freeze on many parts of the budget. But that doesn’t stop the good ol’ boys from funding their favorite “pork” projects. The Commissioner of Administration, Jerry Luke LeBlanc, actually said, “construction in other parts of the state can’t grind to a halt because southern Louisiana was devastated by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.” Senator Robert Barnam (Republican, Oak Ridge) countered by saying, “You know there are boondoggles in here that shouldn’t even be considered in the face of the massive budget problems we have”, in which he specifically identified funding for a new horse arena in Morehouse Parish, part of his district. “Don’t think they’re not going to see this in Washington, D. C.” Of course, in the back of the mind of the senators who voted for this bill is they naturally assume that Uncle Sap will pick up 100% of the tab for reconstruction, so why should they spend a dime when it can be more logically spent on a new horse arena?