Katrina Coverage

Feel the compassion:
The era of big government is back. President Bush is presiding over what is sure to be the most expensive government relief and reconstruction operation in U.S. history.
With estimates of the federal tab ranging up to $200 billion for rebuilding New Orleans and other storm-ravaged Gulf Coast cities, Bush and his Republican allies in Congress are casting aside budget discipline...
...[The Heritage Foundation] has proposed that Congress reopen the $286.4 billion transportation bill enacted in July to remove some $25 billion in what it deems questionable projects, including a proposed $230 million bridge in Alaska from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents...
Pausing briefly to request a bigger money-shovel:
"[The $62.3 billion already spent is] a good start, but victims need more," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said as Democrats worked to ensure they weren't left on the sidelines in the rush by the GOP-led Congress to open the government's wallets to storm victims.
Now, compare these pre-Bush-speech ideas to what was in Bush's speech:
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., proposed that Congress create a Gulf Coast Redevelopment Authority, modeled after the Tennessee Valley Authority, to oversee the reconstruction. TVA, created during the Depression as an independent federal agency, is widely credited with the revitalization of the seven-state Tennessee Valley region.
Other lawmakers have called for a domestic version of the Marshall Plan that helped revive Europe after World War II, or something akin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Work Projects Administration, which put millions of unemployed people to work _ mainly on road, bridge and dam projects _ during the Great Depression of the 1930s...
In his speech, Bush proposed a Gulf Opportunity Zone, Worker Recovery Accounts, and an Urban Homesteading Act.