[StBernard] Washington Post editorial: Looting from Louisiana

[Westley Annis]

Looting From Louisiana

Editorial
Washington Post

Saturday, March 11, 2006; A18

FOR THE FIRST time since Hurricane Katrina ravaged their homes more than
six months ago, residents of New Orleans's flooded neighborhoods this
week started hoping again. The state of Louisiana launched a program
that could provide homeowners with grants designed to cover the gap
between the real cost of reconstruction and the funds they have already
received from insurance companies and the government.

The program, which was worked out in consultation with the White House,
is not extravagant: It covers only residential property, it is capped at
$150,000, and it is designed to work in concert with a zoning plan so
that people are discouraged from rebuilding in unsafe areas. On
Wednesday, the state started accepting applications: Immediately, calls
(to 1-888-762-3252) and online applications (at
http://www.housing-la.com/ ) began roaring in. And no wonder: The state
expects that upward of 100,000 people will be eligible to receive funds.

Whether they all will get money is another question, since this week
Congress took a step toward ensuring that some don't. While Louisianians
were dialing in and logging on, the House Appropriations Committee took
up on Wednesday the $4.2 billion that the administration requested to
complete the funding of the program -- and refused to designate the
money for any one state. Texas wants some. Mississippi probably wants
some. And when other states start thinking a bit harder about their
Katrina-related costs -- schoolchildren educated, evacuees housed --
they may start wanting some, too.

But for once, this $4.2 billion is not a sum plucked out of the air. It
is the figure that the White House, the state and the city figured would
be needed, along with money already allocated, to make the compensation
program work: It is a precisely calculated sum, tied to the number of
flooded houses, the amount of insurance money paid out and the actual
costs of reconstruction. If the House insists on carving money out of it
for others -- as it has done with other hurricane funds -- these
calculations will be thrown off completely.

No doubt Texas and Mississippi do still have financial needs, but they
should meet them in other ways. If the country, and the Congress, want
New Orleans to revive, they should leave this one chunk of funding for
Louisiana alone.

? 2006 The Washington Post Company