'Great city will rise again,' Bush promises Gulf Coast
Vows to lead unprecedented recovery plan
President Bush, speaking to the nation from the nearly deserted heart of New Orleans last night, vowed to lead ''one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen," to help the Gulf Coast recover from the most destructive hurricane in US history.
''This once great city will rise again," Bush said.
The setting for Bush's speech underscored the severity of the task: many of the city's residents still are homeless, and many of the streets, especially in the poorest neighborhoods, remained either flooded or lined with silt and sludge. The White House had to bring its own generators and lights for the telecast from Jackson Square in the historic French Quarter.
But with pumps pulling water out of the city at a furious clip, and the mayor yesterday calling for residents to start returning within days, Bush lauded the progress of the cleanup -- and vowed that the federal government would help at every step.
Bush laid out several specific rebuilding proposals, including the establishment of a ''Gulf Opportunity Zone" of tax breaks aimed at creating jobs; Worker Recovery Accounts of up to $5,000 each for evacuees to use for job training, education, and child care; an Urban Homesteading Act, under which low-income people could get free federal property in exchange for promising to build a home on the site.
''Federal funds will cover the great majority of the costs of repairing public infrastructure in the disaster zone, from roads and bridges to schools and water systems," Bush said in an address televised by the major networks. ''Our goal is to get the work done quickly."
The rebuilding could cost the federal government more than $200 billion, perhaps even $300 billion, which could create the biggest deficit in US history and throws into doubt the viability of Bush's tax-cut agenda and other costly programs.
''The work that has begun in the Gulf Coast region will be one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen. When that job is done, all Americans will have something to be very proud of -- and all Americans are needed in this common effort," Bush said. After his fourth visit to the region since Katrina struck, Bush was scheduled to return to Washington overnight.
Bush won the presidency twice based in part on his commitment to tax cuts, but now he must find a way to pay for the reconstruction, retain the tax cuts, and keep his commitment to halve the deficit while continuing to wage war in Iraq. The debate over how to pay for reconstruction, and whether some tax cuts should be at least temporarily suspended, will probably dominate congressional action for months.
Before Bush spoke, some fiscal conservatives were expressing concern about the scores of spending proposals that had been floated to help the areas hit hardest by Katrina. ''It is inexcusable for the White House and Congress to not even make the effort to find at least some offsets to this new spending," said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma. ''No one in America believes the federal government is operating at peak efficiency and can't tighten its belt."
The president said his proposals were designed to spur business owners to play a leading role in the recovery. ''We will take the side of entrepreneurs as they lead the economic revival of the Gulf region," he said.
In tacit acknowledgment of the mistakes made by local and federal officials in response to the hurricane, Bush said he wants an investigation of the government response to Hurricane Katrina. Noting that the storm involved a massive flood and an evacuation order affecting more than a million people, the president said, ''It was not a normal hurricane -- and the normal disaster relief system was not equal to it."
Enormous questions remain, such as whether hundreds of thousands of homes will be demolished, and whether insurance companies or the federal government will pay for replacing them.
Bush purposefully did not lay out a specific rebuilding plan, leaving many of the decisions to local officials. But in a nod to concerns about pouring so much money into local governments, Bush announced that he would set up a system of financial inspectors to try to ensure money is not wasted.
''Taxpayers expect this work to be done honestly and wisely, so we will have a team of inspector generals reviewing all expenditures," Bush said.
Bush, in an acknowledgment that many victims of the hurricane were poor and African-American said that ''as all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty [which] has roots in a history of racial discrimination."
Bush said his proposals were part of an effort to ''let us rise above the legacy of inequality."
Bush's speech was also intended to repair the substantial political damage to his presidency that resulted from the federal government's slow response to the hurricane. Tens of thousands of people were stranded in New Orleans without adequate food or water as local and federal officials failed to communicate or understand the depth of the disaster.
''The system, at every level of government, was not well coordinated and was overwhelmed in the first few days," Bush said, adding that ''I, as president, am responsible for the problem, and for the solution."
Bush's approval rating is at the lowest point of his presidency, with 42 percent expressing approval of his overall performance and 44 percent approving of his handling of Katrina, according to a New York Times poll released yesterday.
The official death toll for the hurricane throughout the Gulf region stood yesterday at 794.
While an initial projection by New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin of 10,000 deaths now seems high, many areas remain to be searched and many people are still missing.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday that Katrina was the ''most destructive" hurricane in US history, in terms of monetary and physical damage, while the agency said the hurricane of 1900 in Galveston, Texas, took between 6,000 and 12,000 lives.
''In the life of this nation, we have often been reminded that nature is an awesome force, and that all life is fragile," Bush said, referring to the great Chicago fire and other calamities of the past.
Bush noted signs of progress across the region, including the restoration of power throughout most of Mississippi, and the restoration of gasoline pipelines. Evoking the musical tradition of New Orleans, Bush recalled how the funerals of jazz musicians are followed by a band playing a mournful dirge, which breaks into a joyful ''second line" after the casket is laid in place.
''Tonight the Gulf Coast is still coming through the dirge, yet we will live to see the second line," Bush said.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. 