Reply #21: I can top that. WashPost says Feds should pay for the EXISTING levees

[Leopolds Ghost]

But ONLY After the State of Louisiana approves a Republican-sponsored plan to federalize mortgages in the hardest-hit areas,

allowing the government to buy out displaced homeowners who have yet to be allowed to return (to their military-controlled neighborhoods):

New Orleans's Transition

Editorial Staff, Friday, November 25, 2005 (day after Thanksgiving)

"Almost none of the 1.5 million people evacuated... have gone home. New Orleans today is a city of contractors, low-wage workers from elsewhere and a small number of "natives" living in the relatively undamaged higher-altitude wards. Even if they have homes, most of these residents still have no easy access to hospitals or to schools. Large chunks of the city are still without gas or water, and large numbers of homes are still uninhabitable."

NOTE: Mostly due to toxic mold that must be removed ONLY, these old homes have been subject to extensive flooding in the past and survived.

"The next steps forward for the city are in some ways the hardest: At the moment, few people can live there because there are no services, and there are no services because few people live there. Recognizing that they need to move on -- and quickly -- most, if not all, of Louisiana's politicians have abandoned their initial "give us $250 billion and let us decide how to spend it" plans and are entertaining more sensible proposals... The Urban Land Institute, in cooperation with city politicians, has issued a series of recommendations, most notably including the idea that rebuilding should take place in phases, with safer, higher districts being rebuilt first. Both (Governor Blanco) and (Nagin) appear to have signed onto that model, even though it implies that
the lower, more heavily damaged parts of the city may not be rebuilt for years -- if at all.

"The governor and the mayor also more generally support the creation... of a federal or federal-local corporation that would purchase damaged property from owners who can't or don't want to rebuild; the corporation would redevelop the property or put it to some other use. The most advanced version of this plan is a bill proposed by Rep. Richard Baker (R-La.), whose Louisiana Recovery Corp. would:

settle outstanding mortgages;

give property owners to sell or repurchase at a later date or in a drier location;

and make infrastructure improvements so land can be sold and redeveloped.

Any profits from development would be returned to the U.S. Treasury.

The proposal is timely: Within weeks, mortgage companies
may start foreclosing on New Orleans property."

The POST concludes:

"If and when these ideas recieve the full political support of the state and city,
it will be the turn of Congress and the federal government to step in with carefully targeted recovery money: for repairing levees... When that's in place, the uncertainty about whether there will again be a New Orleans will come to an end."