Rein in federal Katrina spending

Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst disasters in our country's history, and by the time it's done, it may also prove to be one of the biggest, most wasteful drains of taxpayer money ever seen.

Not surprisingly, at the center of the money hole will be New Orleans, a city known as much for its corruption as for its Mardi Gras revelry.

"Bureaucracy and lack of funding continue to slow the rebuilding of New Orleans," pronounced the city's mayor, Ray Nagin, as the Aug. 29 anniversary of the hurricane disaster approached.

How can that possibly be the case, when Congress has approved a whopping $122 BILLION for Hurricane Katrina disaster spending? It is an expenditure that dwarfs the $22 billion spent in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks and the $13.5 billion spent on 2004 hurricane damage, mostly in Florida.

We understand the scope of the damage from Katrina, but we also understand that government can only do so much to help those who have been affected by natural disasters. To put it in perspective, the Katrina spending package translates to $1,119 for every one of the country's 109 million households.

To be fair, not all of that money was destined for New Orleans, and Nagin blames much of the problem on red tape associated with a federal bureaucracy that has been slow in actually releasing the money. But some of the delay may be justified, considering there should be accountability in shelling out that kind of dough to the Big Easy.

New Orleans and Louisiana in general are infamous for kickbacks, bribes and general graft that has tended to benefit politicians and their supporters. Most famous of all would be former Gov. Edwin Edwards, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for racketeering - only to be re-elected once he got out. Some degree of prudence was necessary in the wake of the hurricane, as demonstrated by a June report from the Government Accountability Office.

The report concludes that the government wasted between $600 million and $1.4 billion on "improper and potentially fraudulent" individual assistance payments.

Among those are the now infamous $2,000 debit cards that were distributed for emergency purchases, but predictably turned out to have been used in many cases for anything but survival purposes.

But that's peanuts, in retrospect. We are considering the bigger, long-term picture.

Nobody doubts the city will be hit by more hurricanes, and there is a strong school of thought that the levees that are lavishly being rebuilt may be for naught because they erode wetlands that provide a natural barrier against flooding. And there is the vastly underpublicized fact that the city is slowly sinking farther below sea level. A report in the journal Nature concludes that New Orleans will be about 3 feet lower than it is now in just 40 years.

We also have to wonder why federal flood insurance policies actually encourage people to rebuild in storm-prone areas across the country with general taxpayer support.

The big-government-is-my-backup thinking behind those policies is the same fundamental problem that led to much of the misery that followed the hurricane. Those who depended the most on government for everything from water to food to shelter to transportation were failed the worst in the aftermath.

So what's to learn from that? Spend more to beef up the federal government's role in responding to natural disasters? Or teach people not to depend on the government so much?

Will a bigger bureaucracy do better?

Probably not. Instead, government policies should encourage market incentives to build where it's safer, and tax incentives for private investment to lead the way in rebuilding New Orleans and other damaged areas. With private money in play, the decisions are bound to be better. There should be a greater emphasis on improving local disaster response and efforts to encourage greater self-reliance, rather than increasing expectations for an even bigger bureaucratic behemoth to ride to the rescue after future disasters.

Sadly, the response from Washington so far seems to be: more money for more of the same.