A Town Called GOPE

At least, that’s what they might as well rename New Orleans, since it’s apparently going to little more than a Grand Old Party Experiment. The Wall Street Journal (subscription only; no link available—Sept. 15 edition, page B1) reports:

Congressional Republicans, backed by the White House, say they are using relief measures for the hurricane-ravaged Gulf coast to achieve a broad range of conservative economic and social policies, both in the storm zone and beyond.

Some new measures are already taking shape. In the past week, the Bush administration has suspended some union-friendly rules that require federal contractors pay prevailing wages, moved to ease tariffs on Canadian lumber, and allowed more foreign sugar imports to calm rising sugar prices. Just yesterday, it waived some affirmative-action rules for employers with federal contracts in the Gulf region.
Waived some affirmative-action rules for employers with federal contracts in the Gulf region?! So, basically, Halliburton (you know, just as a random example, ahem) gets a no-bid reconstruction contract, doesn’t have to pay a prevailing wage, and can hire whomever they bloody well please without being constrained by affirmative-action requirements. Mm-hmm. All the rightwingers who howl about illegal immigration from Mexico are intractably stupid if they don’t see that this is exactly the kind of shit designed to allow corporate friends of the administration to exploit cheap labor.

Now, Republicans are working on legislation that would limit victims' right to sue, offer vouchers for displaced school children, lift some environment restrictions on new refineries and create tax-advantaged enterprise zones to maximize private-sector participation in recovery and reconstruction. Yesterday, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would offer sweeping protection against lawsuits to any person or organization that helps Katrina victims without compensation.
The list of good ideas for the Grand Old Party Experiment just goes on and on and on, doesn’t it?

"The desire to bring conservative, free-market ideas to the Gulf Coast is white hot," says Rep. Mike Pence, the Indiana Republican who leads the Republican Study Group, an influential caucus of conservative House members. "We want to turn the Gulf Coast into a magnet for free enterprise. The last thing we want is a federal city where New Orleans once was."
I don’t even know what the hell “a federal city” is even supposed to mean, although it certainly appears to mean “a city where federal labor laws are actually enforced, thereby prohibiting corporate exploitation from running rampant.” What I do know for certain is that Mike Pence is a knob-end, just like every other Republican Representative from the State of Indiana.

Many of the ideas under consideration have been pushed by the 40-member study group, which is circulating a list of "free-market solutions," including proposals to eliminate regulatory barriers to awarding federal funds to religious groups housing hurricane victims, waiving the estate tax for deaths in the storm-affected states; and making the entire region a "flat-tax free-enterprise zone."

Members of the group met in a closed session Tuesday night at the conservative Heritage Foundation headquarters here to map strategy. Edwin Meese, the former Reagan administration attorney general, has been actively involved.
Edwin fucking Meese?! Is there a single stinking criminal from the Reagan administration that hasn’t found his way back into favor and aristocratic privilege under the reign of President Sideshow? Fucking hell. Meese ought to be in a motherloving dungeon, but of course Daddy Bush pardoned him (and all the other Iran-Contra scoundrels) right before he ended his pathetic single-term, do-nothing, limp-dicked presidency. (Oh, except for that little Persian adventure, of course.) Edwin Meese—pfft! These people are unbloodybelievable.

Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R., Kan.) said that the plans under development "are all part of a philosophy of lowering costs for doing business." He said southern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama offer a "microcosm" where new ideas can be applied to speed the rebuilding.
Kind of like how costs were lower for businesses back when they didn’t have to deal with pesky shit like child labor laws, minimum wage requirements, worker safety regulations, offering healthcare, and all that other junk for which liberals keep fighting, damn them. If only we could go back to the glory days of the Gilded Age, then deserving men like Tiahrt wouldn’t have to hustle for penny-ante kickbacks in Congress, but could get filthy flippin’ rich on the backs of the poor and desperate, just like capitalism always intended.

Here’s the best part in the whole article:

In response, Democrats are pressing for other proposals that suit their ideology. Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois has suggested creating a national emergency airlift program so that U.S. airlines can help evacuate Americans from areas before a natural disaster strike. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary Landrieu unveiled a plan that would, among other things, preserve victims' Medicaid health coverage, provide $2,500 education grants to displaced students and give victims a 180-day extension on outstanding loan payments.
“Proposals that suit their ideology” has to be the nastiest way of saying, “proposals that help rather than exploit (current and future) victims.” Yeah, technically it’s correct that these proposals suit a liberal ideology of having a social conscience and providing a safety net for the most vulnerable among us, but to present the Democratic proposals as if they’re somehow equally as avaricious as the GOP’s agenda for the disaster region is incredibly disingenuous. Anyway, good on the Dems for trying to do right by the survivors of Katrina.

FYI, in a separate article (Sept. 14 edition, page B1), the WSJ reports that U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is expected to ask Congress soon for authority to waive the McKinney-Vento Act, a federal law banning educational segregation of homeless children, so that evacuees can be educated right in their shelters, rather than integrated into public schooling in the areas to which they were relocated. No shame. No shame at all. Brazen vultures.

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