For Gulf,The Beast Has Long Been Dead

By Jennifer Moses
For The Washington Post
Published: Sunday, December 4, 2005

BATON ROUGE, La. - A primary goal of many Republicans is to "starve the beast" of federal government, the theory being that states and private enterprise, better equipped to respond to local needs than Washington ever could be, will at the very least take up the slack. So let's give credit where credit is due. Here in East Baton Rouge Parish, La., the beast is dead.

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Meanwhile, such glimmers of hope as after-school and job-training programs have largely disappeared. The fact of the matter is that here in East Baton Rouge Parish, we've never managed to take care of our own, and now, in the wake of the storms, we're barely keeping our collective heads above water.

Not surprisingly, in a state that's always scrambled to get by, the financial picture isn't rosy, either, with the storms having ripped a hole in the state's ledger the size of Mars. It's a dicey little problem, too, because unlike Washington, Louisiana is obligated by law to balance its books. Ergo, the governor has had to slash nearly $1 billion out of a total (pathetically small) budget of about $18 billion. In keeping with Washington's philosophy of hurting the hurting, the poor are bearing the brunt of it, with deep cuts in Medicaid, hospitals, nursing homes and health care for the indigent, and additional cuts in education and social services.

As for the evacuees - with tens of thousands still living in hotel rooms, it's only the lucky ones who are being housed in those spiffy new FEMA travel trailers, all of which are miles from bus lines, services, schools and jobs. Welcome to the bayou's own version of the Gaza Strip.

More here:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/12/04/b1.ed.col.louisiana.1204.p1.php?section=opinion