Under this plan, New Orleans can be rebuildt, better than ever, or at least close to as good, and the cost to the American taxpayers would be-not one red cent. So, how exactly is this possible? The simple answer is, you simply find someone, some company, such as Halliburton, possibly, that will agree to do it for free. And of course I understand that at first glance that would seem to be an impossible dream, even a laughable one, but I am not talking here about the prospect of finding someone to do it out of the goodness of their hearts, or even as a public relations ploy. Because in a way, in a very roundabout way, it would not be for free, and there would be an incidental cost of sorts to the Ameircan taxpayer.
Simply put, you make the followng deal with Halliburton, or any other company that might be qualified to conduct the rebuilding project. The deal? If they agree to rebuild New Orleans, totally rebuild it as good or better than it was before, and they agree to do this for free, then the federal governemnt will agree in turn to not charge said company any taxes for the next twenty years-no matter how much money they make. Or maybe for just ten years, or maybe even just for five. I'll leave the details to Congress to work out, with hopefully plenty of oversight. Of course, this deal would certainly come with obligations on the part of any company who agrees to undertake the project.
*The entire infrastructure of the city must be rebuilt-water and sewage treatment, power lines and grids, roads and bridges, cable car lines, etc.
*The leveees must be rebuildt and repaired to withstand as absolutely as strong a hurricane or flood as one can possibly be made to withstand.
*There must be as vast and comprehensive as possible a land reclamation project in order to rebuild that area of land surrounding New Orleans on the coast, in effect if necessary a series of artificial barrier reefs should be constructed to seperate as much as possible the city and surrounding lands from the ever widening and encroaching Gulf of Mexico. One possible way this could be accomplished, for example, might be by utilizing old no longer in use barges, over which could be constructed a series of bridges made of scrap metal, which could then be completely covered over with layers of dirt, and rock quarried from all over the country. The barges themselves could be anchored beforehand with a series of stilts and underlying ledges in order to shore them up, and with chains, anchors, etc. The area could in effect become a rock beach which could provide a degree of protection from flooding and high winds, and at the same time be made to provide an avenue for the port of New Orleans.
*New Orleans and the entire surrounding area, including Lake Ponchatraine, must be clean as much as possible from the chemical and other kind of pollution against which it otherwise will be struggling for some time to come.
*Some form of drainage system must be constructed so that in the future, any flooding of the Mississippi River and/or Lake Ponchatraine can be adequately diverted away from the city.
*Finally, and on a human level perhaps most importantly, every neighborhood, and every home, including those in the Ninth Ward, should be completely rebuildt or replaced, and these homes then given back to the previous owners, free of charge. Every effort must be made to give these newly rebuildt homes to their previous owners, who will be given the option of selling these homes at market value, and who will then be allowed to keep the entirety of the money made for their sale, and will have to pay no fees or taxes for the money they make from the sale, nor if they decide to keep the homes.
*Of course, there should be a firm time table establsihed to make sure the construction is made to proceed in a timely and efficent manner, and oversight must be establsihed to ensure there is no graft, kickbacks, or corruption of any kind, for example directed at the poorer residents and former such of the city. It should be made plain that the old residential neighborhoods of the city shall remain as they were before, there shall be no land grabs for commercial use and development.
*Finally, whenever possible, the residents of the city, if they so desire, should be put to work in a kind of public works project to assist in rebuilding their city. They should be paid, of course, for this work, which will enable them to support themselves and their families while contributing in a meaninglful way to the reconstruction of their city. This could be work ranging from menial labor and maintenance and clean up to more specialized types of work.
*Any insurance company that owes and kind of money to former residents of not only New Orleans but to the entire Gulf Coast, should be made to pay what they owe to those who kept up on their insurance premiums. They should not be allowed to pass this cost on to other consumers. However, in certain cases of demonstrable hardship, these insurance companies as well should be forgiven their tax liabilities over the course of as many years as it takes, (provided again the proper oversight and review is established) to enable them to remain on firm financial ground.
It may in fact take more than one compnay to effect this reconstruction, and any who do involve themselves for free should be forgiven the appropriate amount of tax liability for at least five years, again no matter how much money they legally make in profits from other ventures. It is the right thing to do. It will enable the companies involve to actually in most cases make more money than they ordinarily do through tax savings and it will enable the reconstruction to proceed apace at no cost to the federal government and taxpaying citizens. After all, what would the percent of taxes paid by these companies ordinarily amount to? I would submit that it would doubtless be far less than the amount it would take to outright pay for the reconstruction of New Orleans, to say nothing of the entire Gulf Coast area.
It is certainly a plan that is worth consideration, I should think, if for no other reason than the simple fact that something really does have to be done. Seeing as how if the Federal Government, and also the Louisiana State and New Orleans City Governments, had all done their jobs to begin with in shoring up the levees and maintaining good emergency management planning, etc., the New Orleans disaster would not have been half as bad as it ended up being, for that matter I would suggest it wouldn't have been one third or maybe even one fourth as bad. But all levels of govrnment failed, and they failed miserably. Those who sufferred for that failure? The poor, mostly black, residents of New Orleans.
What happenned is history. What happenned has happenned. Now it's time to move on. Now it's time to make it right.
2 comments:
For the most part, I am going by crap i heard on Now.
Subsidiaries of companies like Haliburton ARE doing the work now & those assholes already don't pay taxes.
While the work was being done by locals, a lot of them were union and, when the feds waived prevailing wage rules, a lot of the original workers got laid off and cheaper, less skilled workers, many mexican, came in & took the jobs.
Because of the waiving of standards on things like environmental concerns, I expect to see all sorts of problems down the road.
There were wetlands south of the city going out into the gulf that workeed a lot like the barrier you describe but it has been eroded through the industrialization and pollution of the area. It would probably be a better path to try to reconstruct the natural shit than build something else foreign.
As far as rebuilding
Man, that is strange.
Communities evolve & grow. Rebuilding what was there would involve rebuilding slums (pretty weird concept). There is no need to do that. Some of the poor areas might be nice locations for more upscale development. some of the nice areas might be better suited for the new slums.
That whole issue of rebuilding residnces for the various economic classes is a strange one. But something that needs to be done in one way or another.
I expect large areas of tenement type housing built on top of toxic sludge.
Even if they divided the work up among different companies, and gave them all 100% tax relief for five or ten years, it would be in the long run cheaper than paying outright for the reconstruction, is my point. Pay outright for it and you have a boondoggle that would make the "Big Dig" in Boston look like child's play. What would start out costing maybe 200-400 billion dollars would I guarantee eventually reach up into the trillions of dollars, and there would still be problems, corruption, and shoody workmanship. That's my point. Do it my way, and it would be understood the work has to be up to standard, and accomplished within a certain time frame.
As for the houses, I submit it would be cheaper, more efficient, and certainly more desirable in a multitude of ways, to rebuild small and medium sized homes, and indeed entire neighborhoods, than it would be to construct a bunch of housing projects. They would not have to be "slums". They probably weren't slums at first, they became so. They could just be nice little houses, buildt pretty much like the originals, only better, and brand new.
They might in time become slums yet again, but nowhere near as quickly as housing projects would. My way would refurbish New orleans in such a way to enable the city to maintain it's unique cultural identity and soul, would be overall the most fair to all it's current and former citizens, and the job would be done more cheaply and efficently.
Post a Comment