BLanco doesn't care about you ... just your vote
When all this mess started months ago, Governor Blanco was visiting other states and placing advertising for her Louisiana Road Home Program. Tens, possibly hundreds of millions of dollars were spent touting Governor Blanco’s program to bring displaced citizens back to Louisiana. Many people, myself included, felt like this was very wrong because we face an election year in 2007. What a better way to start getting votes than to smear your name all over advertising for free money that was actually provided by the federal government.
Applicants were able to start applying for the program August 21st, 2006 at 1:00am in the morning. There are an estimated 123,000 families that are eligible for the 7.5 billion in funds from the feds. To date 82 people have been paid. Six months in operation and tens of thousands of applicants and 82 people have gotten a check.
I read last week where a family was offered $550.00 for the repair if their home that was submerged under 9ft of water. They were ineligible to actually receive that money because any money paid by FEMA must first be subtracted. 7.5 billion dollars divided equally between all 123,000 eligible applicants is just under sixty-one thousand a piece and they offered these people $550.00.
These are the lucky people. They are actually getting award letters. Last month, under pressure from the Governor, the LRHA (Louisiana Road Home Authority) sent out 10,000 award letters with bogus figures on them just to say they were moving forward. This is certainly news worthy since this has an effect on much of southern Louisiana.
Blanco is so concerned with her reelection that she is ignoring this program now. She is too busy trying to paint the republicans as the bad guys of the state. Two weeks ago she ran around the state telling all the teachers and first responders that they were going to receive a pay raise in the special session that she called to spend an 800 million dollar surplus this year and an estimated 1.6 billion next.
This was no small promise. It would require a 2/3 vote to raise the spending cap on the current budget before they could even get down to the brass tacks of spending the money. It didn’t fly because the republicans and some democrats wouldn’t approve the budget adjustment to spend money on pay raises that will eventually cause tax increases on these same people when this tax windfall dries up in a couple of years.
They did spend some of the money increasing the child tax credit and some insurance rebates. They were willing to discuss a bonus for these folks that would have pushed them into the national average. Blanco would have none of that. Heaven forbid they actually see the money she promised them. Then she couldn’t blame it on the republicans.
Folks in New Orleans are facing a crime problem so bad that the National Guard stay has been extended through June 2007. Quite a few marched on the mayor’s home Saturday to protest the lack of public housing. They are upset that he spent all the money to fly around to their various cities to campaign for their votes and now pretends like they don’t exist. Some of the people weren’t in public housing before the storm but rental rates in New Orleans are far too expensive (sometimes more than triple the pre storm rates).
Louisiana is a disaster. 7.5 billion dollars has been sitting since August. People still live in FEMA trailers all over the state. Sooner or later FEMA is going to pull the plug. We are expected to have a 2.4 billion dollar tax surplus over this year and next and it’s likely that no matter what the proposed intentions it will be squandered or Jeffersonis going to have to buy a bigger freezer.