Needed Now – a Gulf States Bailout
To save our south coast — and his own presidency — what Barack Obama should be launching right now is a regional WPA project, Roosevelt style.
Call it Gulf States Recovery, or Gulf States of America.
Hundreds of restoration and public works projects, large and small, are needed. And displaced fishermen, beachfront tourism employees, and many others will need the work.
Congress need not disgrace itself again, wasting precious weeks preening, posing, and logrolling the details. Just appropriate $20 billion dollars – NOW.
The states and cities can work out the details about where the money is most needed and best used.
The cost would be a minor fraction of what we paid to bail out AIG — and BP, Halliburton, et al can be assessed (or sued, or nationalized) to recover much of the money instead of adding it to the deficit.
In the meantime, what the Federal government can do is to provide a Peace Corps type of organizational structure to enlist volunteers from across the country. Volunteers and workers can stay in the hotel rooms left vacant by tourists.
People need help. Not eventually – right now. And others would love to help if there were a way to do it.
All they need is a mobilization vehicle and (just keep Rahm Emanuel out of it) some real leadership.