Drowned

As most of us know, that estimable patriot, Grover Norquist, has only one great desire in life, to reduce the size of the Federal Government so small so that it can be drowned in a bathtub. Well, I'm not sure that New Orleans would make the cutoff for a bathtub, but the death by drowning of our Federal Government seems to have taken place there back in September. You remember, don't you? The hurricane? No? Oh, well.

There is a truly excellent article on the op-ed page of the Washington Post this morning by one Jennifer Moses entitled: Starving The Beast. Ms. Moses is too kind (or astute) to allude to Norquist's jibe. I'm not. Here is some of what she says:

BATON ROUGE, La. -- A primary goal of many Republicans is to "starve the beast" of federal government, the theory being that states and private enterprise, better equipped to respond to local needs than Washington ever could be, will at the very least take up the slack. So let's give credit where credit is due. I don't know how things are going in Fairfax County, Va., or Prince George's County, Md., but here in East Baton Rouge Parish, La., the beast is dead.

Well, Ms. Moses, the beast may not be actually dead where I live, but it is on life support with no advance directives. The safety net for the poor is just that, a net full of holes. (if you doubt this, note that the Republicans, including our congressman Gilchrist, just voted to screw the middle class and poor over food stamps, student aid, lunch programs and Medicaid. Oh, and they are going to take up the "tax break for the MacRichies" on their return from their break (symmetry there).)

Ms. Moses goes on to detail the horror that is Louisiana in the age of our dear King George (George III in England was mad, so they say. He lost a war against insurgents in a far land. Seems the insurgents used guerrilla warfare (Spanish for little war). Oh my, those guerrillas were US.)

Even before hurricanes Katrina and Rita exposed the Bush administration's cynical callousness toward our most vulnerable citizens, Louisiana in general and East Baton Rouge Parish in particular were home to some of the most profound poverty in the nation, along with all the social ills that poverty breeds. Where does one begin? With the staggeringly high rate of HIV transmission? The fact that Louisiana public school teachers are ranked 46th in the nation for average teacher pay? Our dismal high school graduation rates? Our soaring teenage pregnancy rates? Or the public schools, which on the whole are such a disaster that they can only be compared to a war zone?

She goes on:

The fact of the matter is that here in East Baton Rouge Parish, we've never managed to take care of our own, and now, in the wake of the storms, we're barely keeping our collective heads above water.

I could quote the whole article, its that good, but read it yourself. Near the end, she says this:

In the meantime, there are bills to pay. Just for starters, Louisiana owes FEMA $3.7 billion. Local governments with no tax base (their tax bases having been wiped out) are being forced to repay disaster-relief loans. The U.S. House of Representatives recently removed a provision from a bill that would have given Louisiana the opportunity to obtain federal bridge loans. New bankruptcy law makes no provision for victims of the storms. Not to mention the staggeringly high cost of electricity. (emphasis added)

This really cuts to the marrow of our so called Society. Why should the victims have to pay back that dysfunctional albatross FEMA? (Grover says: "Brownie, you did a really good job.") And what about that bridge in Alaska? Can't we build bridges in Louisiana for millions of people to cross and let the Eskimos still use their ferry? All 50 of them?

Jeez. (I am not outraged. Only sort of. That doesn't count.)

And what does the royal consort, Queen Laura say:

"Let them eat Brownies!"