Bush's Speech

President Bush certainly sought to do a lot of damage control in tonight's speech delivered from Jackson Square in New Orleans. However, it is as unclear how effective the rhetoric will be in counteracting the President's false starts as the plan will be in addressing the region's challenges.

Now, I'm in no position to evaluate what is needed in the Gulf Coast region following Katrina. Nor am I in position to evaluate how best to deliver what is needed. However, it is clear that Bush's solution is to lavish federal dollars on the region. And while the federal government needs to play a significant role, I question whether Bush's Big Government approach is the right way forward or whether it is simply throwing dollars at a problem to stop the bleeding on the political front.

The numbers are staggering. $200 billion, $5k per evacuee. The initiatives bold and sweeping: a Gulf Opportunity Zone, minority ownership, childcare, anti-poverty initiatives, home ownership, public works, economic development. This speech and these initiatives may rival Roosevelt's New Deal in their breadth. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough observed that these initiatives would "make Lyndon Johnson blush." Moreover, Bush directed that states and localities would have great autonomy in managing the recovery. To which Scarborough responded by saying

"And he's giving all the money to Blanco and Nagin. I wouldn't trust them to arrange my sock drawer, much less manage federal funds."

Indeed, Bush continues to look less and less like a fiscal conservative and more and more like a New Dealer. And of course that's fine. Except for the fact that he protests against claims that he's a "big spending Repblican." If there's anything worse than a tax-and-spend Democrat, it's a don't-tax-but-spend-anyway Republican. And that's where we find ourselves.

It seems like every time Bush makes a poor decision, the taxpayers end up paying the price to keep his poll numbers up. Fail to make al-Qaeda a priority and connect the dots prior to 9/11? Spend billions on Homeland Security and nation-building in Afghanistan. Miss the boat on WMD and the insurgency? Commit billions to fostering democracy and nation-building in Iraq. Fail to fund hurricane protection and effectively react to Katrina? Order up a hefty plate of pork for the Gulf. This is another "I'm sorry." But George W. Bush's "I'm sorrys" are getting awfully expensive, don't you think?

Again, there is no doubt that Katrina is going to be costly. And of course, we as a country have a responsibility to support our brothers and sisters as they recover from this catastrophe. The Feds should be central to that process. But how much of this plan is an "I'm sorry?" And where is the president leading in identifying possible trade-offs? Are his tax cuts on the table? The trip to Mars? And for a man who managed to inexplicably "lose" $9 billion in Iraq without so much as a press conference discussion of the matter, do we really trust his plan to outsource recovery to the Gulf Coast kleptocrats that managed to get us in this position in the first place?

Needless to say, we true conservatives have a lot of questions.