This morning in New Orleans Senator Barack Obama outlined his plan to rebuild. This plan is not only comprehensive in its scope and focus, but it puts its money where its mouth is. It offers the most striking contrast with President Bush's complete failure to rebuild a major American city with not even half-ass effort.
You can read the plan for yourself by clicking here.
In his speech, like always, Obama gets right to the heart of the problem:
America failed the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast long before that failure showed up on our television sets. America failed them again during Katrina. We cannot -- we must not -- fail for a third time. But tragically, that's what's happening today. And that's what needs to change. I am here to remember this, but also to look ahead. We need to rebuild this city. And we need to tend to the foundation that we rebuild upon.
Obama seems to understand the problems that existed in New Orleans that Katrina exposed. Obama wants not only to rebuild the city's infrastructure, but also get to the root of the problem of why so many people were left exposed.
First things first: security and safety:
Strengthen the Levees: Two years after Katrina and despite a billion dollars spent to strengthen the levees, New Orleans is still not protected from a major storm. The levee rebuilding has been piecemeal and disorganized, and major sections of the city remain nearly as vulnerable as they were before the storm. As president, Barack Obama will ensure that New Orleans has a levee and pumping system to protect the city against a 100-year storm by 2011, with the ultimate goal of protecting the entire city from a Category 5 storm. Obama will also direct revenues from offshore oil and gas drilling to increased coastal hurricane protection.
Restore the Wetlands: Levees and floodwalls are not the only way to protect against a storm. Every four miles of wetlands can absorb about a foot of Hurricane’s storm surge, but Louisiana is losing an acre of wetlands – the equivalent of three football fields – every 24 minutes. Barack Obama will help the Gulf Coast restore the wetlands, marshes and barrier islands that are critical to tamping down the force of hurricanes. He will work with local governments to develop the best strategies for protecting and expanding wetlands. As president, Obama will immediately close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, which experts say funneled floodwater into New Orleans.
Fight Crime: Katrina decimated the region’s criminal justice system, destroying police stations and courthouses, and scattering police officers. New Orleans led the nation in murders per capita in 2006, and is experiencing a 14 percent increase in murders and 44 percent leap in armed robberies this year. Two of the city’s police stations and police headquarters continue to operate out of FEMA trailers. As president, Barack Obama will finish rebuilding the region’s criminal justice system so that we do not have to rely on the National Guard to patrol city streets. He will establish a special "COPS for Katrina" program to allow communities
impacted by the storm to hire and retain new officers and community prosecutors, develop community-based crime fighting strategies, and rebuild their lost infrastructure. Obama will strengthen Drug Enforcement Administration efforts to stop the reestablishment of drug gangs across the region. He will help local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies come together to establish an integrated regional crime control partnership so that each police chief and sheriff doesn’t have to face these crime problems alone.
While I think he may be going a bit timid on not seeing to it that NoLA is protected from a category 5 by 2011, this is a significant step forward, and exceeds anything anyone else, including the current administration is proposing. I also think closing the Gulf Outlet is an excellent idea. MRGO is an expensive, useless and horribly pathetic waste of taxpayer dollars. It has caused extensive environmental damage and does not service the purpose for which it was initially built. Today only 1 vessel per day bothers to pass through it. Furthermore, the levees along MRGO were the most vulnerable and were the major cause of flooding. Closing this disaster of planning is a significant step towards protecting the city from future floods. Finally, he takes steps to restore law and order to the city.
Obama goes on to address the infrastructure needs by proposing to rain down Federal money on hospitals, schools, housing and transportation. But what really got me excited is when he turned to economic development:
Ensure Locals Can Get Recovery Jobs: In the past year, unemployment in the Gulf region has increased despite economic recovery efforts. Barack Obama believes that Gulf Coast residents who lost their jobs as a result of Katrina should be given a fair chance of regaining employment. In the Senate, Obama introduced legislation to increase the government-wide procurement goal for contracts awarded to small businesses for recovery and reconstruction activities related to Hurricane Katrina. He will fight to ensure more Katrina-related recovery or reconstruction activities can be done by local residents. These measures would ensure that Gulf Coast residents, and not big corporations, will rebuild their communities. As president he will work to improve job training in the area as well.
Probably the most reprehensible thing about the Katrina recovery under this administration has been sheer number of jobs that have gone to people who aren't from New Orleans. Here we have a significant opportunity to put a whole generation of folks to work in the building trades, and we waste it by bringing in big contractors who hire illegals to do the work. It is absolutely mind boggling.
His final (and most needed) policy proposal is this:
Provide an Insurance Backstop: The damage caused by catastrophic hurricanes and other natural disasters
over the past few years makes clear that we need a paradigm shift in how the Federal government responds to major emergencies. Rather than only stepping in after the fact with expensive clean-ups and financial bailouts, the Federal government should work with the insurance industry before the next major disaster to set up an efficient catastrophe insurance "backstop" that protects both homeowners and business owners against catastrophic loss. Barack Obama will create a National Catastrophe Insurance Reserve that would be funded by private insurers contributing a portion of the premiums they collect from policyholders. Such a framework would neither distort the insurance market nor discourage risk avoidance and risk mitigation investments because insurers would not be forced out of high-risk markets for fear of bankruptcy in the event of a disaster. With this program in place, disaster victims would no longer have to depend solely on taxpayer-funded federal disaster aid loans. It has been estimated that a properly managed fund could save homeowners $11.6 billion on annual insurance premiums.
This has significant benefits. First, it will encourage the building of homes and business in areas that have been hit by disaster. Folks in Florida know all about this. Insuring your house against a catastrophic natural disaster is prohibitively expensive, and many insurers dont even want to bother. By creating some measure of predictability in this market, it will encourage insurers to compete for homeowners insurance business since they know that all insurance companies are sharing the risk with each other and the federal government. Whats great about this proposal is that the insurance companies pay into the fund from premiums collected, cutting the cost to the taxpayers.
I think, once again, Obama has stepped into the concerns of everyday folks with solid proposals that are both bold and pragmatic. Every time he does it, I become more convinced that his fresh new leadership is exactly what this country needs.