Katrina Coverage

From this:
Louisiana lawmakers have just over two weeks to chart their hurricane-ravaged state's future, from rewriting building codes to weighing tax breaks to changing how employment benefits are calculated, and then answering the big question: how to pay for it all.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco called the special session starting Sunday for the Legislature to address 77 […]

From New Orleans mayor seeks aid, loans for shortfall:
New Orleans is seeking federal aid and new loans to ride out a $204 million budget shortfall caused by the expected loss of all property tax revenue in the short term, the city's mayor said on Thursday.
"If we project out based on maintaining essential personnel and essential […]

Louisiana's budget deficit got an official number today — nearly 971 million dollars lost in state tax income that the governor and lawmakers will have to slash from state spending in the remaining eight months of the budget year.
Economists warn the budget problems could worsen as they get more concrete details of the lost sales, […]

source
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin believes that the city will be larger and much safer in as little as five years.
Nagin made the proclamation in front of the City Council Thursday as he projected his budget for the upcoming year.
While anticipating a much smaller city initially, Nagin believes the opportunity to rebuild New Orleans will […]

From this:
A frustrated New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin warned Thursday that it would be in the state's best interest to help the Crescent City jump-start its Hurricane Katrina-riddled economy, saying the impact on the state — if nothing is done — will pale in comparison to the layoffs the city recently announced.
"You think 3,000 layoffs […]

The chancellor of the University of New Orleans, economist Tim Ryan, says he would not be surprised if New Orleans area business failures caused by Hurricane Katrina run much higher than the national average for disaster-related failures of 25 percent.
There were 115,000 businesses in NO in 2002, most small companies or one-man operations. If he's […]

From this:
The number of people out of work because of Hurricane Katrina has reached 279,000, and many more job losses are expected because of Hurricane Rita. The lost jobs, coupled with surging energy prices, are expected to deliver a sharp blow to overall economic growth in the second half of this year. Also of concern […]

John Podhoretz:
Once again, as it has at every turn in his presidency, crisis has brought out the high-stakes gambler in George W. Bush. He believes in bold action, and in the extraordinarily risky speech he gave last night, bold action is exactly what he promised the American people…
…Unlike most conservatives, he believes that the power […]

I think he misunderstands what "bankrupt" means. He seems to think it means just not having cash. Despite their bond ratings being lowered, I'm sure New Orleans can raise some money from somewhere.
[Nagin] said the city spent its last available cash last week on city employee payroll and was seeking bank loans, federal assistance […]