Bush Turns Progressive?

A change of heart? I applaud Bush for at least addressing the problem. However, it seems Bush is at odds with conservative ideals. Without raising taxes and/or cut spending in other areas, how is Bush going to pay for the massive rebuilding of New Orleans? Perhaps the only "viable" way for him is to bump up the federal deficit. He has too many groups to appease right now, IMO, and he doesn't have the luxury to do that.

Poverty and racial injustice must be cleared away with the debris, says Bush

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,23889-1784107,00.html

September 17, 2005
From Tim Reid in Washington

THE poverty and racial injustice laid bare by Hurricane Katrina must be wiped out as New Orleans and the Gulf coast region are rebuilt, President Bush said yesterday.

Hours after announcing the largest domestic reconstruction effort in US history, Mr Bush said during a service at the National Cathedral in Washington: “As we clear away the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away the legacy of inequality.” But he received a mixed reaction among Republicans to his address from New Orleans on Thursday night, when he pledged to rebuild the region at an expected cost of at least $200 billion (£111 billion).

In his address, Mr Bush took responsibility for failures in his Government’s response to the storm, pledged a review of disaster plans for every large city, and called for the “quick” rebuilding of the region. Although Mr Bush later made clear that no taxes would be raised to pay for hurricane relief, fiscal conservatives in his party expressed dismay at the cost.

Speaking from the deserted Jackson Square in the New Orleans French Quarter, Mr Bush acknowledged that government agencies had been overwhelmed by the hurricane and that future disasters would require greater federal control and a broader role for the Armed Forces.

He also announced the creation of the Gulf Opportunity Zone to cover the affected areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, providing tax breaks and loans to foster job creation among small businesses. The federal Government would provide accounts of up to $5,000 to evacuees to pay for job training, education and childcare.

“This will be one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen,” Mr Bush said. “We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes. This great city will rise again.”

In remarks echoed in the National Cathedral yesterday, Mr Bush referred on Thursday night to the largely poor and African-American evacuees who suffered for days in the Superdome and convention centre in New Orleans.

He said: “We have also witnessed the kind of desperation no citizen of this great and generous nation should ever have to know: fellow Americans calling out for food and water, vulnerable people left at the mercy of criminals who had no mercy and the bodies of the dead lying uncovered and untended in the street.

“As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in the region. And that poverty has its roots in a history of racial discrimination . . . we have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.”

He urged Congress to pass an “Urban Homesteading Act”, which would provide building sites on federal land through a lottery to low-income citizens, free of charge.

Mr Bush said that a chief aim was to lure those who had fled New Orleans back to the city. But a Washington Post opinion poll yesterday made clear the challenge: fewer than half of the city’s evacuees now in the Houston area want to return.

The call to pour tens of billions of dollars into the region increased rumblings among Republicans, with some threatening to rebel. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma senator, said: “I wouldn’t vote for another penny until we get real about the hard choices of cutting some spending.”