Opportunities amid the damage

It is unfortunate that this country so frequently must wait for disaster or catastrophe to strike until it can create serious reforms, but regardless of this fact, the mandate for change post-Katrina is there. Bush now has an unbelievable opportunity to change many of the countries poorly operating programs. I am not just referring to the countries emergency response programs, although those are obviously in desperate need of some sort of change. There is now a chance to refocus many efforts on urban renewal and assistance.

During the Hurricane Katrina coverage someone joked to me that the reason people were so upset was because they hadn't seen this much poverty on TV since the last race riots. Ironically there is a lot of truth in that joke and also a lot to be learned about legislative possibilities. Right off the bat many traditionally conservative people and press outlets were drawing attention to the story of New Orleans and its history of urban degeneration. At the height of the Katrina outrage Richard Lowry of the National Review had this to say:

To the extent that it has been made especially dangerous to be black in New Orleans, it is a product of a culture of governmental corruption and incompetence, including rotten policing, that goes deeper than any simplistic racial demagoguery can capture. Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans is black. He has been a reformer, but it would take more reform than one mayor is capable of to change New Orleans. Nagin’s predecessor, Marc Morial, was black too, and a business-as-usual politician. This summer, aides, friends, and an uncle of the former mayor were indicted on corruption charges.

In many senses, however, poverty is indeed dangerous. The root of it, more than anything else, is the breakdown of the family. Roughly 60 percent of births in New Orleans are out of wedlock. If people are stripped of the most basic social support — the two-parent family — they will be more vulnerable in countless ways, especially, one assumes, in moments of crisis like that that has befallen New Orleans. If the tableaux of suffering in the city prompts meaningful soul-searching, perhaps there can be a grand right-left bargain that includes greater attention to out-of-wedlock births from the Left in exchange for the Right’s support for more urban spending (anything is worth addressing the problem of fatherlessness).

Unfortunately, the post-catastrophe debate will probably be toxic and unhealthy, just like the oily, fetid waters of New Orleans.

Although Lowry's reason for the impoverished condition in New Orleans is typical of many conservatives (like Rick Santorum for whom the traditional family is the sole reason for America's prosperity-nevermind the high average income of gays) it is shocking that anyone at the National Review would be talking about one of their least favorite subjects, urban plight. Conservatives have never really figured out an adequate political way to address urban plight (and no one has really figured out a way to truely address urban plight, but that is besides the point) so many tend to ignore it, viewing it as a Pandora's box. Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty (similar in many ways to Bush's War on Terror) represented the pinnacle of liberal waste and indulgence to conservatives of the day.

But the National Review was not alone, today David Brooks, one of the founding editors of the Weekly Standard, emphatically stated, "...Hurricane Katrina has given us an amazing chance to do something serious about urban poverty."

And he is right, Bush really has the chance to show his credentials in compassion, while not betraying his rock-hard conservative constituents. Bush could begin by expanding one of the very few two efficient federal programs, Section 8 housing and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Both programs have been in the spotlight lately, with Section 8 housing the displaced evacuees and the EITC being floated as a possible way to assist people with higher gas prices.

With those two simple moves Bush could relieve the suffering of so many, so efficiently. Then if Bush dedicated the amount of attention he has to his War on Terror and Social Security he could spark one of the great debates of this century. Also, he could do it on his terms, I am not calling on Bush to declare a War on Poverty, nor am I suggesting he sponsor a third New Deal or a second Great Society (which was really the second New Deal). But many economists and urban planners have really great ideas that have been tested in limited environment (like those Brooks describes in his article). They are ready for federal implementation, all that is necessary is some effort by our president who has an opportunity only rivaled by that of post-9/11.

-Mr. Alec

Bonus Argument: Bush could use this to woo many of the black voters that Republicans talk so much about gaining.