GOP Plans To Profit From Katrina

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Tuesday September 20, 2005 · 6:59 PM PDT

2005/09/20 · 18:59

Okay, people: Time to act now.

As NPR noted this afternoon, the Republicans -- far from being abashed at how Hurricane Katrina exposed the gaping moral holes in their philosophy -- are instead trying to figure out ways to use Katrina to push their agenda.

Descriptions of what they're planning -- and ways to counter their plans -- are after the jump.

Several Republican legislators, working with the Heritage Foundation, are planning to use the aftermath of Katrina to push their own pet agendas, such as cutting taxes and environmental regulations in the name of reviving the region. Everyone's favorite 35%-approval-rate Senator, Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum, was captured on the air as saying that Katrina demonstrated that "faith-based" groups were more flexible and could provide better aid than The Evil Gummnit.

Of course, this all ignores several things:

-- The Bush-and-GOP-sanctioned acceleration of the destruction of the wetlands surrounding New Orleans that made the hurricane so deadly in the first place

-- The fact that if both FEMA's Mike Brown and his boss, DHS' Michael Chertoff, had both done their damned jobs (a la Clinton's FEMA guy, James Witt) and followed their duties as laid out in the National Response Plan, aid and sandbags would have got to the Gulf Coast well in advance of Katrina, thus minimizing the damage

-- The fact that the Bush Administration cut much-needed levee funding which prevented New Orleans' levees from being strengthened in time to deal with Katrina

-- The fact that Rick Santorum is a freaking idiot who at one point called for fining those New Orleanians who didn't leave town ahead of Katrina. (Surprisingly enough, he has not made a similar pronouncement for the residents of those places currently being menaced by Hurricane Rita -- places such as Key West and Houston, towns with mostly white populations in states with GOP governors. Funny how that works!)

All right, folks -- you have your talking points. Go write some letters and make some phone calls!

National Media:

letters@nytimes.com, letters@latimes.com, editor@usatoday.com, letters@washpost.com;

National Public Radio: 1-800-989-TALK (8255)

MSNBC: 1-888-MSNBC-USA.

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