The cost of rebuilding

Isn't it time that someone put the brakes on the runaway cost estimates for rebuilding the Gulf coast disaster areas, or at least showed some kind of limit here?

These estimates have roughly doubled every day for the past week, and the latest are up to US$200-300bn. That's hogwash. There is no way this nation can spend that much public money on ANY disaster recovery.

Here is one example of the idiocy: Some New England town, I believe in CT, said that they would take 100 displaced families. When they computed the cost of maintaining those families, it was estimated that each family couldn't be supported for less than $80,000/year!

OK, I'm a middle class dude, and I live fairly high on the hog. My family expenses are right around $50,000/year and that includes housing (in a very nice house in a very nice district), food, two cars, all forms of insurance and clothing, etc.

How could a welfare family who gets subsidized housing, subsidized food, paid health insurance and free meals for the kids at school cost 60% more than I pay to live well?

Those families could be very adequately supported for under half of the proposed amount, so I have to believe that the officials responsible for working up this estimate (which FEMA will undoubtedly pay without question) have grossly padded it, maybe by setting up an entirely new bureaucracy to "manage" the families.

This can't be allowed to happen. We can't pay over double to relocate families and support them. We can't pay three times market value for their destroyed homes. We can't pay for New Orleans to conduct their Mardi Gras celebration next April and subsidize every visitor that comes to revel.

In short, let's be realistic about this. We will probably be asked, each and every one of us taxpayers, to pay a tax surcharge for this recovery and reconstitution work. Before we agree to tax ourselves for this, let's insist on some common-sense rules first:

• Let's establish a firm base of the cost of rebuilding and doing business down in the Gulf before we throw any money at that area. It generally costs quite a bit less to do business in that region, so let's not even dream of paying New York or Los Angeles construction costs there. To do so would run up the living cost there to where everyone not affected by the crisis will be horrible damaged by cost runups. Let's be very aware of previous practices there. For example, in some parts of the country, a general contractor gets a 10% cash kickback on all the subcontracts he awards. Some parts of the nation don't do that, and if the Gulf region doesn't, let's not start that practice there.
• Let's look at how the money used to be handled down there. Back in the bad old Long family days, all government grants had a slice taken out for corrupt officials before the money got passed on to the intended recipients. Some say that such corruption existed right up to Katrina. If it did, it's a good time to investigate that now and make sure that the huge sums FEMA is handing out and will continue to hand out actually ALL go to the recipients and not into corrupt pockets.
• A lower prevailing wage is generally paid in the Gulf region. Most of the reason for that is because there is a much lower cost of living there. Let's analyze all grants and payments to make sure that their inflationary effects are minimized. It just isn't fair to non-crisis residents to have to have their standard of living reduced by runaway costs in their areas.
• In areas outside of the Gulf, FEMA must make sure that requests for payments in support of relocatees are provable. The example above is just a red flag, not a final bill by that township, but I suspect that similar padded requests will be forthcoming, and FEMA may be so overwhelmed by requests that they won't investigate each one for validity, but just write the checks. The taxpayers don't need that kind of waste.
• Finally, there are the usual sharks of politics circling now to try to get hooked into the cash line from FEMA so that they can "direct" monies to places that do them the most political good. I expect that these games will be played by members of both parties, but FEMA had better put out some stern warnings NOW, to prevent frause, waste and abuse later. It should be a matter of FEMA policy to include a rule that any future discovery of fraud in grants will be immediate cause for suspension of all other payments pending investigations, and if fraud is proven, repayment of stolen monies must occur before the resumption of payments to the organization that has committed the fraud.

These are a few suggestions, but if they were put in place now, the runaway estimates would stop, and a more reasonable process of reconstruction can begin.