Bush stole the levee repair money, stopping rebuilding work already in progress, by cutting the ACOE budget to less than one fifth, for three years. Why? So he could give tax breaks to his rich friends, that's why. America's most unique city, its rich heritage and culture, and thousands of people, died so the rich could get richer.
Facts:
June 7, 2001
Bush signed his massive $1.3 trillion income tax cut into law, a tax cut that severely depleted the government of revenues it needed to address critical priorities. The first major economic initiative pursued by the president was a massive tax cut for the rich, enacted in June of 2001. Those with incomes over a million got a tax cut of $18,000—more than 30 times larger than the cut received by the average American. The inequities were compounded by a second tax cut, in 2003, this one skewed even more heavily toward the rich.
Bush’s first budget introduced in February 2001 proposed more than half a billion dollars worth of cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers for the 2002 fiscal year. Bush proposed providing only half of what his own administration officials said was necessary to sustain the critical Southeast Louisiana Flood Control Project (SELA)—a project started after a 1995 rainstorm flooded 25,000 homes and caused a half billion dollars in damage.
February 2002
The president unveiled his new budget, this one with a $390 million cut to the Army Corps. The cuts were devastating. The administration provided just $5 million for maintaining and upgrading critical hurricane protection levees in New Orleans—one fifth of what government experts and Republican elected officials in Louisiana told the administration was needed. Likewise, the administration had been informed that SELA needed $80 million to keep its work moving at full speed, but the White House only proposed providing a quarter of that.
February 2, 2004
White House on February 2 released a budget with another massive cut to infrastructure and public works projects, this time to the tune of $460 million. The Southeast Louisiana Flood Control project sought $100 million to strengthen the levees holding back the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, but the Bush administration offered $16.5 million. The Army Corps of Engineers had also requested $27 million to pay for hurricane protection upgrades around Lake Pontchartrain—but the White House pared that back to $3.9 million.
Gaps in levees around Lake Pontchartrain (this includes the canal levees that failed), were supposed to be filled by 2004, but would not be because of budget shortfalls. Corps officials said the lack of money would leave gaps in the structure and push back its completion date. Worse, because budget cuts had been compounding for three years straight, even after all the gaps are closed, the levee must settle for several more years until it reaches its final height. By June, for the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped work on the New Orleans area’s east bank hurricane levees.
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/28/787097/-Katrina-Shorthand-vs.-the-Federal-Flood:-Why-This-Matters
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