Re: [FairfieldLife] "Can't happen here" syndrome

[MDixon6569]

In a message dated 9/1/05 9:21:53 P.M. Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The federal government always pays for projects like this. This is simply the way it's done in this country. It would have cost billions of dollars to get the levees up to where they could have withstood this storm. The entire budget for the state of Louisiana is only about 16 billion dollars, and it's likely that health care for state employees and the poor is at least 4 billion of that. No way would any state spend that kind of money on a project of that magnitude. Not exactly true. The federal government doesn't normally pay 100% for these kinds of projects. Usually a percentage. And that percentage could vary. New Orleans and the state of Louisiana could have easily raised the money needed by imposing a tax on Hotels and rental cars. This would have hit the tourists instead of the poor and with New Orleans being a tourist city they could have financed the project very quickly. Of course there are other ways of financing such projects as well. The way I see it, city, parish and state officials thought they could gamble on not needing the reinforcements until they could get the feds to pay more later down the road. Bad Decision! To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS  Visit your group "FairfieldLife" on the web.    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.