Pisaturo on the Welfare State

Via Martin Lindeskog is another damning editorial about Katrina and the welfare state. Ron Pisaturo opens by outlining the staggering amount of money spent in Louisiana by the welfare state.

According to the US Census (see http://www.census.gov/govs/estimate/0219lasl_1.html), Louisiana State & local governments spent $27.7 billion in fiscal 2002, when Morial was Mayor. That is more than $24,000 per family of four! Of the total, less than $900 thousand was spent on police. But more than $3 billion was spent on "public welfare," another $7 billion net of revenue was spent on public education, another billion net on health care, and another billion net on "environment and housing." Moreover, of the State and local governments' $27 billion in revenue, $6 billion--more than $1,400 per capita--came from the federal government. Compare that to $1,100 and under $1,000 per person in the Bushes-governed Gulf-coast states of Texas and Florida, respectively; yet the federal income taxes paid by individuals in Louisiana is roughly $1,000 per capita less than in those other states. (See http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/01statab/fedgov.pdf .) Nevertheless, or not surprisingly, the Louisiana and New Orleans welfare-statists brazenly complained that their federal comrades, including those at the welfare-state program known as FEMA, did not help them enough.

And then he comments on those left behind.

Every one of these people who stayed behind through his own unwillingness to manage his own life is a villain in this story. Not only did these people endanger their own lives and the lives of their children, but--by overburdening or even deliberately obstructing rescue operations--they got in the way of the rescue of those who actually needed and deserved to be rescued.

When the hurricane had passed, these non-producers were still in the city, and then they complained--with belligerence more appalling than their suffering--that no one was feeding and sheltering them anymore. TV news reporters lamented the "intolerable" conditions for the refugees at the Louisiana Convention Center, and seemed blind to what their own cameras were showing: big, strong men and women, standing around in the streets amidst their own garbage, taking no initiative, waiting for a bus. For me, a scene that symbolizes the whole situation took place when one of the many obese women yelled accusingly into a reporter's microphone: "I haven't eaten in five days!"

Yes. Before the looting started, it was the belligerence of many of those still in New Orleans that amazed me most. Frustration at the circumstances I could have understood, but what I saw did not qualify. It marked the first time I was appalled at the behavior of someone who should have been grateful to know he was going to be rescued soon.

-- CAV