-- Three months after Hurricane Katrina, we know that damage is enormous. We know that it will cost billions of dollars to rebuild New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast. What we don't know is where the money will come from.
Louisiana's congressional delegation introduced legislation in September calling for a $212 billion federally funded rebuilding effort; fiscal conservatives scotched the proposal.
Even a more modest request for $32 billion to strengthen Louisiana's flood defenses so they could withstand a Category 5 hurricane _ the current standard is Category 3 _ has drawn a tepid response from the Bush administration.
"Hopefully that decision will be made sooner rather than later," said Donald Powell, the White House's top hurricane reconstruction official, during a recent trip to Louisiana.
Only the federal government has pockets deep enough to pay for a massive reconstruction effort. But there is a significant difference of opinion over whether _ and if so, how _ the government should raise the money.
"This kind of major public works project has to be a state and federal partnership," said Andy Kopplin, executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, which was created by governor Kathleen Blanco to advance the state's reconstruction.
As an example, Kopplin points to the costliest public works project in U.S. history _ Boston's Big Dig. The $14.6 billion, 14-year effort buried 7.8 miles of elevated highway in downtown Boston. The federal government pitched in just over $8.5 billion for the project, which was plagued by corruption and cost overruns.
The federal government will have to cover a much larger share of the cost for Louisiana's reconstruction, however, both because the total will be multiples of the Big Dig's cost, and because the state and New Orleans are in the red.
At a recent special legislative session, state legislators grappled with a $1 billion budget deficit by cutting health care services and funding for public colleges. And with more than a million of its residents scattered to the winds, the state will continue to have a difficult time raising revenue.
In September, Bill Clinton advocated increased taxes to pay for Katrina reconstruction and the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. But President Bush has vowed not to raise taxes, or even to roll back the tax cuts he made during his first term in office.
"There needs to be a vision at the federal level _ a vision for what the city of New Orleans is going to look like and what's going to happen to the 600,000 households that have been displaced," said Matt Fellowes, a senior research associate at the Brookings Institution.
Fellowes advocates enlisting the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the effort to find more permanent homes for the hundreds of thousands of families displaced by Katrina. Even three months after the storm, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had 50,000 families are living in hotel rooms paid for by the government. Another 10,000 families from Louisiana and 18,000 from Mississippi are living in house trailers or mobile homes.
