Bush After Katrina: Where's Harry Hopkins?
Published September 16, 2005
I thought that President Bush gave a pretty-sounding speech last night. With the "beauty shot" of Jackson Square lit up like an angel's daylight behind him, he exuded hope to those who searched for it. The hopeful overtones seemed closer to what you'd expect from the articulate and inspiring Sen. John Edwards. The usual G.W. Bush "sloganese" was absent, for the most part. When he reassured America that the great city of New Orleans would rise again, I think that most people believed that he meant what he said. He admitted his mistakes. He spoke of the rebuilding as a "common effort," which was one of the most uniting and sincere-sounding phrases I've heard from Bush since 9/11. It was good talk, yet we realize the cagey devil remains to be found slithering among the bare details. What Bush had to say was not easy to accept, but it was realistic. For many conservatives, it was a slap to the face. After all, piling $200 billion (plus) to the monster of a deficit that the Bush administration has already created is staggering in its economic implications.
Rather than offering an Inspector General to ensure that our tax dollars will be spent honestly and wisely by reviewing upcoming expenditures, I believe Bush should have given us the name of a new program with an administrator who has real and material experience in social management and economic oversight. A glorified auditor is not sufficient, and Bush can't handle the job himself. Karl Rove is the worst person for the job because of who he is and what he stands for. After what we saw with FEMA, I don't trust that we can leave this awesome task to the various bureaucracies (DHS, Labor, SS, FEMA,et al) with no one "czar" to report to. The military may be of invaluable assistance, but they should not be required to have as broad of a role as recommended by the President. New Orleans is going to be more than just a bunch of new buildings. It's going to be a city to which a lot of underprivileged people will return with the hope of opportunity.
Harry Hopkins, who lived in New Orleans for a time, was FDR's trusted channel of communication and administration. He was chosen to head up the short-lived FERA (Federal Emergency Relief administration), which vastly improved the fortunes of the unemployed in the 1930s. Back then, America was fighting to recover from a depression and Congress was generous, spending a whopping $4 billion in total on FERA programs. It was the economic pump that broke the depression. It provided a substantial stimulus to the revival of business by creating purchasing power in a once-destitute class. It raised the standard of living of the poorest and lowest-paid people. In his day, many right wingers called Harry Hopkins a "communist" because of his focus on social justice. Louisiana's own Huey Long had disagreed, averring that FDR had not been generous enough with federal funds and admitting that the redistribution of wealth to the American people was socialistic but necessary. Harry Hopkins had said:
"We can only say that after every dollar entrusted to us for lessening of distress, the maximum amount humanly possible was put into the people's hands. The money, spent honestly and with constant remembrance of its purpose, bought more of courage than it ever bought of goods."
- Bush After Katrina: Where's Harry Hopkins?
- Published: September 16, 2005
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Politics
- Filed Under: Politics: Law and Rights, Politics: U.S.
- Writer: Jude Nagurney Camwell
- Jude Nagurney Camwell's BC Writer page
- Jude Nagurney Camwell's personal site
- Spread the Word
- Like this article?
- Email this
Save to del.icio.us
Comments on this articleComments
His grandson was a Clinton appointee. Does that help at all?
Dave
It helps point out that both Harry Hopkins' were quasi socialist democrats and unlikely to be appointed to anything but Bush.
Dave
Do you actually believe that Harry Hopkins' leadership was damaging to depression-era America?
I got to this article via a search for "drown in bathtub" because it has occurred to me that the effect of what Bush is proposing may be to carry out the Norquistian mandate. If they spend all that money but try to cut the federal budget instead of raising taxes to fund it, the effect will be to gut Federal programs.
The rumblings of this are already emerging--a Montana farmer reported to the Ed Shultz show that he had just returned from Washington and that Congress is seriously talking about cutting the budget to pay for the Hurricane damage.
I agree, Earwicker. This is the lie behind Bush's pretty sounding speech. He makes Americans think they can have it all - with no sacrifice. WIll his legacy wind up being dumping impossible deficits in the next administration's lap? Woudl a Republican want this any more than a Democrat? That is why I'm calling out for a Harry Hopkins.
In the end, I believe it will be shown that Norquist's wet dream will have drowned in the floods of Katrina - because we can all see, with clear eyes, the folly of his ideas. If Bush and Co keep trying to bleed society of federal assistance, he will become a lame duck and every thinking politician, left or right, will publically shun him like an Amish whore.
Jay Ackroyd says today (at TPM Cafe):
Now [Bush] is turning once again to his colleagues in the House and the Senate, and asking them to increase the deficit by another huge margin, in order to provide what is essentially welfare assitance to a large number of Americans.
From the perspective of a deficit hawk, he's not just said he wants to spend a boatload of money, he's picking some really bad mechanisms, like tax breaks and enterprise-free zones. Such breaks (see the mohair subsidy set up for WWI uniform needs) never go away. These mechanisms also irritate flat-taxers and libertarians, because they distort decision-making.
These benefits are not going to go to the constituents of the Senators and Congressman who support him. The recipients are in a few states, and, ftmp, are neither voters nor contributors.
The exceptions are, of course, the Halliburtons and the Shaw groups who will take their cut off the top. But is that really enough? Even Tom Coburn knows that these deficits have to be paid down eventually, and Bush won't be around to pay the piper.
WIthout a reelection to hold over their heads, are these guys gonna just agree to yet another massive increase in unfunded federal spending? Can Rove dole out enough additional pounds of pork to get their agreement? Will the Northeastern Republicans (who aren't getting any pork, nor much of anything else stand for this)?
Forget that Hokins stooge, where THE HELL is Harry Potter?
"Waiving Davis-Bacon while silenty offering rebuilding contracts to profiteering political cronies is nothing but worrisome."
Why worry?
I understand that the construction contracts to rebuild NO are "Cost Plus" contracts. That means the more the contractors spend -- the more profit they make.
So the contractors will want to spend as much as they can -- and the workers can expect to make very good wages.
That's the way Washington contracts work.
The federal checkbook apparently has an infinite number of checks that can be written.
>>Do you actually believe that Harry Hopkins' leadership was damaging to depression-era America?<<
No, actually. I think that Hopkins managed the projects he was assigned far better than most of Roosevelt's appointees, but he also presided over the single largest government expenditure on a single social welfare program of all time (in adjusted dollars). And frankly I hope we'll never see programs like the FERA again in America. There are better ways to address unemployment.
Dave
Wow, Joe - a license to overbill -who'dathunkit? Geez, I can't wait to go to work to pay taxes to help Halliburton. Like Dave said, there are better ways of ending Halliburton's unemployment than some old tried but true FDR civil works program that might allow for widespread local thriving. Better to suck all of civil society dry (leaving them so economic and spirit-poor that they rush to the closest Salvation Army for soup and Jesus) than to leave your fatcat cronies without knowing where their next millions are coming from.
Jude, why would you rather have people in New Orleans working for the US Government with all its waste and bureaucracy, than doing the same job for Halliburton or another company which will likely pay them more, return a profit for their stockholders, and possibly employ some of them in the long term?
The government as a mass employer of laborers in competition with private industry is just a dumb, dumb idea.
Dave
SEE Why It's Time for Dr. New Deal (Again)
By Ralph E. Shaffer and Walter P. Coombs, professors emeriti at Cal Poly Pomona
written with a 9/19/05 date.
"Where is President Bush's Harry Hopkins?"
(Good Ol' Harry typically jumped the bureaucracy to hand out cash on site. Good for the 20th century, not so good for this one.)
_______________________________________
"We need him. Bush may speak pretty rhetoric, yet he is virtually silent about the social needs of New Orleans and of the worsening poverty across the United States."
(Check the Census Bureau for the stats on this one. Poverty is decling under Bush from Clinton at about a smoothed 1%. Get the facts, don't repeat the rumor.)
_______________________________________
"Waiving Davis-Bacon while silenty offering rebuilding contracts to profiteering political cronies is nothing but worrisome."
(Are you a Bush crony? If not, how do you know that Bush is "silently offering" rebuilding contracts to his cronies? Or did you just make this up?
First, Harry Hopkins was a proven Communist spy, so, let's leave him out of the equation. Second, the tax cuts have led to the highest revenues in our country's history so raising taxes isn't the answer.
THe answer is individual responsibility and expecting the liberal state and county governments to do their jobs instead of always pointing the finger at Bush in a a fit of "victimhood".
That one's about as airtight as Saddam's connection to 9/11, my friend.
No such allegation has been substantiated or proven.
Winston Churchill held Mr. Hopkins in high esteem. He once said of Mr. Hopkins, "He was the most faithful and perfect channel of communication between the president and me." And in reference to Mr. Hopkins' grasp and appreciation of Europe's many battles with Germany, Winston Churchill said, "It was to be the defeat, ruin and slaughter of [Adolph] Hitler to the exclusion of all other purposes, loyalties, or aims."
As to your comment about revenues, you simply must be joking. Bush's tax cuts contributed to revenues dropping in 2004 to the lowest level as a share of the economy since 1950, and have been a major contributor to the dramatic shift from large projected budget surpluses to projected deficits as far as the eye can see.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/36288)
I hear Rush Limbaugh vociferously defending Bush's liberal speech last night - and I'm glad. He said, at this stage, "I'm for anything that wipes out the American left." Which is hilarious, because Bush emulated politicians like Sen John Edwards, in tone and principle, last night. He had to emulate the left -- he's in the deepest hole, in popularity, that any president in American history has been in. Rush Limbaugh is an apologist boob and a scourge upon the hope for American unity.