The Private Sector is Always Better

There has been much talk recently about the success, or lack thereof, of the rebuilding efforts along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina one year ago. The lack of progress compared to the huge amount of money thrown, around $127 billion to date, at this project is astonishing. I personally am appalled and angered at the inefficiency of the goverment's handling of this situation. Most of the heavily damaged areas still look the way they did 9 months ago, and aside from the new levee, I see not much worth bragging about. There is no amount of compassion that can justify what the government has done with this situation. While the Administration should receive the most blame, Congress has not been in the right. Congress has passed most of the President's proposed emergency spending bills without much debate. When thinking about it, I see why. This kind of "compassionate" spending is right up the pro-welfare Democrat's alley. If you look back the President presented some good ideas, but most of them were removed from legislation by Congress. The President and the American public were in a period of great sympathy at the time and had their fiscally conservative radars down. The Congressional Republicans are the ones who have really disappointed me. They should have brought the conservative problem solving attitude to this terrible situation and proposed options like free enterprise tax free zones to spark business investment and, in turn, economic recovery in the area. Some proposed a 5 year suspension on capital gains taxes, but unfortunately it was not in the final legislation. Other options include suspended income and property taxes to encourage people to work and invests in a home. There are many other incentives that would have allowed the efficiency of the free market to come in and, through competition, quickly and more cheaply rebuild what was lost. Simple free market economics tweaked for the particular situation where the market does the work is usually the easiest and most effective solution to a problem like this. I feel for the people of New Orleans who had to suffer through the tragedy of the Hurricane and then the ineffectiveness of the government in the aftermath. I respect and sympathize with the compassionate reaction of government leaders in handling the situation, but I hope in similar future situations fiscally conservative principles and free market incentives will prevail as the best way to recovery.