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Thomas Misc

Thomas Architecture, East Chicago

Thomas East Chicago

When I first moved to East Chicago ten years ago, it was common for me to say “East Chicago, and indiana for that matter, were about ten years behind most of the rest of the country.” Now ten years later, I find myself saying “East Chicago is now about twenty years behind most of the country.” There is no doubt in my mind that Mayor Pabey wants to rebuild East Chicago. The North Harbor Plan is a great example of tackling our problems head-on. Yet, with a housing project such as the North Harbor project, timing is everything. The North Harbor project is happening at a time when western sprawl of the Chicago suburbs is now half way across the state. This provides home buyers a good incentive to look at the South Shore and East Chicago (only 20 from Downtown Chicago). Unfortunately, This is all happening when the housing buble seems to have peaked and may be on a steep decline. My concern is that our lack of keeping pace with the rest of the country leaves us without the tools necessary to bring us out of industrial age. There are a series of interesting reports at the Center for Economic and Policy Research website. one in particular is:

“Will a Bursting Bubble Trouble Bernanke? The Evidence for a Housing Bubble” by Dean Baker and David Rosnick

You can find a earlier post at: Housing bubble: Paul Krugman on Alan Greenspan

Thomas East Chicago

Throwing the Little Ones Back

Throwing the little fish back, a common practice, causes fish to shrink over time since there is selection against the survival of larger fish:

Survival of the Smallest, Ecology, Scientific American: Any commercial fisher or weekend angler knows to “throw the little ones back.” The idea is to give small fish time to grow up… But that strategy may actually be harming fish stocks. Ongoing experiments on captive fish reveal that harvesting only the largest individuals can actually force a species to evolve undesirable characteristics that diminish an overfished stock’s ability to recover, says David O. Conover, director of the Marine Sciences Research Center at Stony Brook University. The results may explain why many of the world’s most depleted stocks do not rebound as quickly as expected. 

Thomas Economics, Environment

I have four new books on my reading list.

“Collapse - How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” by Jared Diamond

“False Dawn” by John Gray

“Globalization and its Discontents” by Joseph E. Stiglitz

“The Rise and Decline of the State” by Martin Van Creveld

Thomas Reading List

Not quite the “Rule of Unintended Consequences.”
Environmental Economics tells us that Rob Stavins has concluded that EPA’s New Source Review has been a huge mistake:
Environmental Economics: Stavins on new source review:

Rob Stavins’ seventh “Environmental Perspective” column [The Environmental Forum®, May/June 2005] weighs in on new source review. In “Regulating by Vintage: Let’s Put A Cork In It.” In short:

Research has demonstrated that the NSR process has driven up costs tremendously (not just for the electric companies, but for their customers and shareholders —that is,for all of us)and has resulted in worse environmental quality than would have occurred if ?rms had not faced this disincentive. 

Tighter regulations for new plants and upgrades provides an incentive for firms to let their plants get old and dirty. This increases the cost of generating output and cleaning air. One solution, not surprising if you’ve hung out here for any amount of time, is marketable permits.

Here is something we said about NSR back in October: New Source Review.

Thomas Economics, Environment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(East Chicago, IN) -The City of East Chicago will hold a press conference on Thursday, February 23, 2006, at 10:00 a.m., in the Mayor’s Conference Room, 4527 Indianapolis Blvd., to officially announce a partnership with two of the nation’s most prestigious and successful non-profit community development corporations, The Community Builders, Inc., and Hispanic Housing Development Corporation, for the purpose of redeveloping the entire North Indiana Harbor section and the Lakefront.

The partnership is joined by EDAW, which is one of the nation’s top urban planning firms. After the announcement, the development teams will present their initial plans and procedures for the project.

Cline Avenue to the east, Michigan Avenue to the west, Columbus Drive to the South, and Lake Michigan to the North border, are the areas involved in the project. The project will involve an extensive construction of mixed-use of housing, with an emphasis on market rate leasing and ownership, new retail-both large and small, light industrial, and recreational facilities and uses, as well as the continued rehabilitation of existing neighborhoods and infrastructure. The emphasis throughout will be comprehensive planning and community involvement to enhance in all ways the quality of life for residents of the area and to make it a destination and recreation site for those outside of it.

The development will bring millions of dollars of private investment in to the Indiana Harbor Community. The city will ensure that the public infrastructure is in place as a foundation for the new development activity, but the vast majority of development funds will come from banks and other financial institutions. “Our team will also work with the city to approach the Regional Development Authority, the State of Indiana and the Federal government to leverage additional public funds to support infrastructure, schools and quality services that will enhance the entire East Chicago community,” said Bill Goldsmith.

“Our goal is to build on the momentum already created by Mayor George Pabey to retain and attract a culturally diverse community rich in public and private amenities, while creating job and contract opportunities for existing residents and businesses,” stated Paul Roldan, President & CEO of Hispanic Housing.

“So many people either worked here or came from East Chicago, or had family and friends who did,” said Nathaniel Ruff, City of East Chicago corporate counsel. “We have heard from a number of members of the administration who have attended meetings throughout Northwest Indiana that there is a great deal of enthusiasm and support through Northwest Indiana for the Mayor’s pledge to repair, rebuild, restore, reinvigorate, and renew East Chicago.”

“We want East Chicago to be a great place in which to live, and also a destination for jobs, shopping, ethnic and cultural experiences, and recreation,” said Mayor Pabey. “The announcement we make today is another major step towards the fulfillment of this promise.”

Thomas East Chicago

Last night I was informed that the city planner made a formal announcement at a Lakeshore Chamber of Commerce dinner that St. Catherine’s hospital would be expanding into Washington Park thus closing Grand Blvd. between 142nd and 144th. These discussions were never shared with neighborhood residents or anyone outside the administration. At this point I don’t have any real planning information to go on.

Thomas East Chicago

Recently, the members of the RDA were blindsided by Council as they were informed that they are required to develop a comprehensive plan before they can spend a single cent.

Was the response of RDA members to divy up the funds in the same old fiefdom fashion they are accustom to doing?

Thomas Northwest Indiana

As some may know, I have been chairing a Comprehensive Planning Committee on behalf of the Mayor. After much work and deft diplomacy by John Artis, we have brought the process forward. As a committee we have gain the initial buy in by the proper departments and individuals. We have also made our recommendations to the Mayor and received back his approval. I am very pleased by these outcomes and truly believe in their importance to the future of this community. I am told the Mayor will be making an announcement of the selection in two weeks. More to come.

Thomas East Chicago

VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT COMING.
John Artis has taken the lead in moving forward with the North Harbor Action Plan developed by EDAW in 2002. The result of which will be a major announcement by the mayor this week. I cannot share much now, but expect more on this topic soon. This is a very serious and I believe very necessary program for East Chicago. The greatest I’ve seen in NWI or most place for that matter.

Thomas East Chicago

Every so often I come back to this and become frustrated with the undeserved arrogance. I am convinced that E.C. would be a year ahead and finalizing its Comprehensive Plan. With the election of George Pabey to Mayor of East Chicago came a new ruling class and the purging of the intellectual class reminiscent of the great purges in Russia. For the past year this new ruling class, taking on responsibilities they lack qualifications, has been desperate to show progress. They have focused their attention on physical evidence in the built environment for expression their moral superiority over the past regime. This has essentially created a environment where all outside the ruling class laid vulnerable to redevelopment. Throughout the year eminent domain could be heard regularly in the conferences of this small group, while project after project was proposed without the engagement of professionals, authorities or the input from stakeholders such as industry or the public. This ruling class scoffed at their views and recommendation. They even attempted to move forward without a vision. Their first expression came with the teardown of the Historic Bank building for a Walgreen’s. later this first year, in an attempt to move the cities ideas for a Port forward I set up a meeting between the Cities Economic team and JRR and SEH, the planning consultants for the Congressmen’s Marquette Plan. I have never seen such complete disrespect in meeting. They just ignored them and huddled around their own plan. Taking the professionals out of the plan. Fortunately for East Chicago they have had many setbacks and have not had much of a chance for a second act.

Thomas Local

“Evolution of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement” By Lee Bots and Paul Muldoon

Thomas Reading List

The following are some of my thoughts as I consider the impact the RDA can have on the region.

Agreement is not only elusive it is counterproductive to the very nature of our mission. The necessary range of our endeavor can only be achieved through a decentralized network of interests.

Organizing a region is one of the most ambitious human endeavors. Concepts at this scale are at the height of what is to be a Metropolis and why the RDA has formed. Where planning is generally considered a local responsibility municipal fragmentation is inevitable. Ordering the regional system has generally taken one of three approaches; social, environmental, or transportation.

Social plans emanating from a concern for creating a better place to live include Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City concept, and today’s New Urbanism. They establish three fundamental foci: The Urban Boundary, The Rural Boundary and Transit-Oriented Development. (NWI does not have regional example of this approach, However we do have a few scattered developments ranging from the worker villages of Marktown and Sunnyside to more recent developments such as Coffee Creek)

The environmentally structured plans include Olmsted and Eliot’s Boston Regional Plan. These examplify how the juxtaposition of nature to human settlements transcends ideology. Concerns for health, recreation, as well as our watershed, land and forests can overcome socioeconomic divisions. (The Marquette Plan as our first and only regional land use plan is a worthy expression of a Metropolis)

Until recent concerns for the environment, transportation had been the strongest determinant of the regional form, and continuous to be the ruling determinant here in NWI. (Again NWI is looking to transportation)

It is my recommendation, as we build this Metropolis and compete against other regions, that NWI and the RDA along with other regional authorities seed and overlay plans along all three approaches, To be a successful community we must learn to juggle many balls, and not ignore any for the emanance of one. From a land use perspective NWI has suffered from the tyrrany of single - use planning (some may argue the lack of planning). We must now acknowledge that this approach has not done us well. It has not been smart nor sustainable.

Thomas Northwest Indiana

Today is an apt time to release some of my thoughts about the forming of the RDA. The following is a message I sent on to Tim Sanders, the NWI representative of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. and one of the organizers of the RDA, on September 6, 2005.

Today’s Opinion section of the Times outlined a number of initiatives for the RDA. Although I fully support the economic opportunities these projects represent to the region, I must encourage the RDA to adopt principles of “smart growth” and “sustainable development” to mitigate against any adverse impact. With the ongoing events on the Gulf Coast (due in part to the weakened wetlands system), the mission of the Great Lakes Collaborative in protecting our water supply, and the regional movement to improve the quality of life here in NWI, it is timely that the economic mission of the RDA partner with ecological principles. As we all know our waterways and air are amongst the most polluted in the country. We have the need and the opportunity to reverse the damage. First, in so doing, we have the opportunity to seed an industry of environmental re-mediation, secondly, in so doing, we open the opportunity to feed-up the American economic food chain and attract knowledge based industries and workers to the region. I have an idea, lets get obsessive about cleaning our environment and lets be known throughout the country for this obsession. Chattanooga, Tennessee can serve as a great example, considered America’s dirtiest city in the 1980’s today it is one of America’s greenest.

At present the mission of the RDA is project or action/transportation orientated, as the outline of initiatives show. The RDA, as a natural outgrowth of NIRPC is like NIRPC, and threatens to duplicate NIRPC and past mistakes. With that said NIRPC’s historical role has been in transportation, leaving land use to the municipalities, in reality to industry (In the case of East Chicago and Gary City Planning and building standards are no longer existent). At some point, municipal shortfalls will need to be addressed at the regional level, if we are to maximize economic growth opportunities. The regions lack of history in land use planning and lack of balance between land use and transportation has contributed to the regions lack of quality of life. We lack so much. I encourage the members of the RDA to bring greater emphasis to land use planning and establish a committee addressing Brownfield redevelopment. For further discussion on Brownfield Redevelopment and three case studies see below.

Although I am not a Historical Preservationist I must also encourage the RDA to act responsibly when it comes to the few remaining remnants of our regions heritage. In the right hands these resources offer nodes of development from which to cluster new industries in todays knowledge based economy. These historical references can give location a place, and a marker to time. In our zeal to get something done don’t forgot the value of what was already here. WE DO NOT LIVE IN AN ENVIRONMENT OF SCARCE OPPORTUNITIES AND WE DON’T HAVE TO BEHAVE AS IF WE DO. We need to behave as we want to be, and we will become that. We just need to prove that we are economically rational, that we understand the value of what we have, and that we treat what we have with value.

Next, I would like to raise a tone of caution when it comes to the planned expansion of Gary/Chicago International Airport, I fear the need to aggressively push expansion through will negatively and severely impact East Chicago’s harbor neighborhoods as this does not have to be the case. As presently planned the expansion would negatively impact the only stable middle class neighborhood in the City, a hospital, three elementary schools, and acres of parkland. If I could I would nominate the airport expansion as a candidate for a smart growth initiative, by orienting growth in a much more compatible manner. It appears the planned configuration is a political configuration, and perhaps a product of the petty fiefdoms. The intent seems to be to threaten the desirability of East chicago, and force East Chicago to negotiate from a negative position, to gain back its future economic potential. The only problem is East Chicago leadership does not yet perceive the threat and are not engaging the issue.

Lastly, Lets be vision makers, and lets build upon our identity.

Thomas Northwest Indiana

From MaxSpeak, You Listen! Bruce Bartlett, the Conservative Republican and Reagan Tax Guru, testifies before the Senate Policy Committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you this morning. As you know, I testify as a Republican—I have served in senior political positions in Ronald Reagan’s White House and George H.W. Bush’s Treasury Department, and as executive director of the Joint Economic Committee, a cosponsor of this hearing. However, I do not represent the Republican Party or any organization with which I may be associated. I am here speaking only for myself.

I testify as someone who is very disenchanted with his party’s fiscal policy since 2001. Unlike the other witnesses, I am less concerned about the deficit per se or about the size of the tax cuts enacted over the last five years. Rather, what really bothers me is the increase in spending and expansion of government that my party has been responsible for.

I used to believe that the Republican Party was the party of small government. That’s why I became a Republican. I don’t believe that the federal government has the right to one penny more than absolutely necessary to fulfill its essential functions as spelled out in the Constitution. I think government is over-intrusive and could do what it has to do far more efficiently and at lower cost, which means with lower taxes.

Therefore, it bothers me a great deal when Republicans initiate new entitlement programs, massively expand pork-barrel spending, and show the most callous disregard for fiscal integrity. Not too many years ago, Ronald Reagan vetoed a politically popular highway bill because it contained 157 pork-barrel projects. The latest bill contained at least 5,000. Yet President Bush signed this $295 billion bill into law, despite having promised repeatedly to veto a bill larger than $256 billion.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why President Bush seems so incapable of using his veto pen. His father knew how to veto bills. He vetoed 29 of them in his four years in office. But in his first four-plus years, this President Bush has vetoed nothing. He is the first president since John Quincy Adams to serve a full term without vetoing anything. Curiously, Adams is also the only other son of a former president to become president—and his father, John Adams, didn’t veto anything, either.

When I complain about this to the White House, they tell me that it is very hard to veto bills when your party controls both Congress and the White House. But this explanation is simply implausible. Franklin D. Roosevelt had huge Democratic majorities, yet vetoed a record 372 bills. John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter also had large majorities of Democrats, yet Kennedy vetoed 12 bills during his short presidency, Johnson vetoed 16, and Carter vetoed 13.

I won’t bore this committee with numbers. You know them as well as I do. Suffice it to say that our fiscal situation is dire and growing worse by the day. My principal concern, however, is not with today’s deficits—even if they are swollen by Katrina and Rita-related emergency spending. What worries me is the retirement of the baby boom, the first of which turns 62 in 2008. I’m not saying that we are close to driving off a fiscal cliff, but clearly the implications of this event have not impacted on policymakers in any way whatsoever.

I have struggled with a way to illustrate the consequences of an aging population and its effect on the budget. This is the best I have been able to do. Social Security’s unfunded liability comes to 1.2 percent of GDP in perpetuity (1.4 percent without the trust fund)—about what is raised by the corporate income tax—according to that program’s actuaries. The comparable number for Medicare is 7.1 percent of GDP—about what is raised by the individual income tax. And remember that these figures are for the unfunded portion of these programs, so they are over and above payroll taxes.

The chilling conclusion, therefore, is that virtually 100 percent of all federal taxes, on a present value basis, do nothing but pay for Social Security and Medicare. Unless there are plans to abolish the rest of the federal government, large tax increases are inevitable.

Let me be clear that I am no advocate of higher taxes. I’m the one who drafted the Kemp-Roth bill back in the 1970’s and I have spent most of my career looking for ways to cut tax levels and tax rates. But that was predicated on an assumption those supporting tax cuts also wanted to downsize government. I never saw tax cuts as a substitute for spending cuts, but more as sugar to make the medicine go down. My ultimate goal was to reduce both taxes and spending.

Unfortunately, few in my party seem to share this philosophy any longer. For many, tax cuts have become a substitute for spending cuts. It truly amazes me how often I hear people on my side talk about cutting taxes as if this is the only thing necessary to downsize government. They seem genuinely oblivious to the fact that the burden of government is largely determined by the level of spending, not taxes. Nor do they understand that in the long-run, all spending must be paid for one way or another. Increasing spending today, therefore, absolutely guarantees that taxes will have to be raised in the future.

I am often criticized by friends on my side of the aisle for implicitly endorsing tax increases. I do no such thing. I am simply adding two and two and getting four while my friends seem to think there is some way of only getting three.

They also criticize me for implicitly abandoning the fight to cut spending and downside government. Again, I plead innocent. It is not I who has abandoned the fight, but my party. I don’t need to remind anyone here that the biggest spending increases in recent years passed Congresses with Republican majorities largely without Democratic votes. Nor do I need to remind anyone here that during the Clinton years we not only went from budget deficits to budget surpluses, but did so to a large extent by cutting spending—something my conservative friends seldom acknowledge.

Here’s the basic accounting. Defense spending fell by 1.4 percent of GDP between 1993 and 2000, and domestic discretionary spending fell from 3.8 percent to 3.3 percent. Even spending on entitlements fell for temporary demographic reasons, from 10.2 percent of GDP to 9.8 percent. Finally, interest on the debt fell, largely because of falling interest rates, from three percent of GDP to 2.3 percent. The result was an overall decline in spending of three percent of GDP, from 21.4 percent to 18.4 percent, the lowest level since 1966, before the Great Society geared up.

On the revenue side, individual income taxes rose by 2.5 percent of GDP, mainly as the result of rising incomes that pushed people up into higher tax brackets and higher capital gains taxes from the booming stock market. Corporate income taxes and payroll taxes added another 0.8 percent, for a total revenue increase of 3.3 percent of GDP. Thus lower spending and higher revenues constituted a fiscal turnaround of 6.3 percent of GDP, which explains how a deficit of 3.9 percent of GDP in 1993 became a budget surplus of 2.4 percent by 2000.

I don’t give President Clinton full credit for this performance. I think most of the credit goes to gridlock. Mr. Clinton wouldn’t support the Republican Congress’s spending and it wouldn’t support his. So for a blessed six years, government effectively was on automatic pilot. Sadly, unified government has led to an utter lack of restraint by my party that is simply inexcusable. It is extremely dismaying for me to hear House Majority Leader Tom Delay say that there is no fat in the budget and that Republicans have cut it to the bone. This is, quite frankly, ludicrous. My real fear, however, is that he may actually believe it.

I remain convinced that given the total lack of fiscal responsibility demonstrated by the Republican Party that very large tax increases are inevitable. I believe that the fiscal hole is now so large that it is unrealistic to think that we can just tinker with the tax system, as we did so often in the 1980’s, and raise enough revenue to pay for spending commitments that have been made. And under the circumstances, I have no faith whatsoever that spending will be significantly restrained—at least not by my side. They would first have to admit error and beg for forgiveness from people like me, something I don’t expect to be forthcoming any time soon.

Therefore, like it or not, we must travel the same route taken by the Europeans, who long before us made peace with the welfare state and tried to figure out how to pay for it with the least negative impact on economic growth and incentives. They all imposed a broad-based consumption tax called the value-added tax as an add-on tax to all the others. I think it is only a matter of time before we are forced to do the same thing and the longer we wait the more painful it will be when it is finally done. Unfortunately, we are more than likely going to have to be forced into it by a financial crisis of some sort. It would be better to avoid that cost and deal with our fiscal situation rationally. But I see no leadership on either side that would allow that to happen.

I don’t know when, where or how a financial crisis will develop. I only know that trends that can’t continue don’t. Since it is unlikely that the vast fiscal imbalance will be resolved with a whimper, it becomes a certainty that it will end with a bang. Among the areas ripe for triggering a crisis are a popping of the housing bubble, a crash of the dollar, a mistake by some big hedge fund, excessive tightening by the Fed and others too numerous to mention. It will take extraordinary luck and skill to avoid every boulder in the stream and I have little confidence that this administration has the personnel to even give us a fighting chance. There are too many Michael Browns at senior levels of the government today and too few Bob Rubins or Alan Greenspans.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think the American people are a bunch of children who only want hand-outs from the government and will only reward the party that promises them something for nothing. Experience and academic research confirm that they are more likely to support the candidate who treats the public purse with prudence and trust and not as a piggy bank to be routinely broken on a whim. In short, I think there is a political market for the party and the candidate who speaks honestly about the nature of the fiscal crisis that is looming. The payoff may not be immediate and the public trust has to be earned by more than just rhetoric. But if, as I believe, some event will eventually change the political landscape, voters will remember who spoke the truth and who mouthed the platitudes.

It’s dirty work, but someone has to do it. Since my party won’t do it, yours is going to have to. If it’s done right, your party will gain at the expense of mine and you will deserve the benefits and my party will deserve the electorate’s disdain.

Thomas Economics

Behind the scene efforts at the White House to screw the middle and Lower classes

From the LAT’s: “Limiting Government’s Role” by Peter G. Gosselin and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

Two days after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced plans to issue emergency vouchers aimed at helping poor storm victims find new housing quickly by covering as much as $10,000 of their rent.
But the department suddenly backed away from the idea after White House aides met with senior HUD officials. Although emergency vouchers had been successfully used after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the administration focused instead on a plan for government-built trailer parks, an approach that even many Republicans say would concentrate poverty in the very fashion the government has long sought to avoid.

A similar struggle has occurred over how to provide healthcare to storm victims. White House officials are quietly working to derail a proposal by leading Republican and Democratic senators to temporarily expand Medicaid. Instead, the administration is pushing a narrower plan that would not commit the government to covering certain groups of evacuees.

Thomas National

From Duncan Black:

Eschaton: Quote of the Day

“… I went to Florida a few days after President Bush did to observe the damage from Hurricane Andrew. I had dealt with a lot of natural disasters as governor, including floods, droughts, and tornadoes, but I had never seen anything like this. I was surprised to hear complaints from both local officials and residents about how the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handling the aftermath of the hurricane. Traditionally, the job of FEMA director was given to a political supporter of the President who wanted some plum position but who had no experience with emergencies. I made a mental note to avoid that mistake if I won. Voters don’t chose a President based on how he’ll handle disasters, but if they’re faced with one themselves, it quickly becomes the most important issue in their lives.”
Bill Clinton, My Life (p. 428).

Thomas National

Paul Krugman asks “how many FEMA’s are there?”

All the President’s Friends - New York Times: How many FEMA’s are there? Unfortunately, it’s easy to find other agencies suffering from some version of the FEMA syndrome. 

The first example won’t surprise you: the Environmental Protection Agency, which has a key role to play in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, but which has seen a major exodus of experienced officials over the past few years. In particular, senior officials have left in protest over what they say is the Bush administration’s unwillingness to enforce environmental law.

Yesterday The Independent, the British newspaper, published an interview about the environmental aftermath of Katrina with Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst in the agency’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, whom one suspects is planning to join the exodus. “The budget has been cut,” he said, “and inept political hacks have been put in key positions.”… What about the Food and Drug Administration? Serious questions have been raised about the agency’s coziness with drug companies, and the agency’s top official in charge of women’s health issues resigned over the delay in approving Plan B, the morning-after pill, accusing the agency’s head of overruling the professional staff on political grounds. Then there’s the Corporation for Public Broadcasting….

You could say that these are all cases in which the Bush administration hasn’t worried about degrading the quality of a government agency because it doesn’t really believe in the agency’s mission. But you can’t say that about my other two examples. Even a conservative government needs an effective Treasury Department. Yet Treasury, which had high prestige and morale during the Clinton years, has fallen from grace.

The public symbol of that fall is the fact that John Snow, who was obviously picked for his loyalty rather than his qualifications, is still Treasury secretary. Less obvious to the public is the hollowing out of the department’s expertise. Many experienced staff members have left since 2000, and a number of key positions are either empty or filled only on an acting basis. “There is no policy,” an economist who was leaving the department after 22 years told The Washington Post, back in 2002. “If there are no pipes, why do you need a plumber?” So the best and brightest have been leaving.

And finally, what about the department of Homeland Security itself? FEMA was neglected, some people say, because it was folded into a large agency that was focused on terrorist threats, not natural disasters. But what, exactly, is the department doing to protect us from terrorists? In 2004 Reuters reported a “steady exodus” of counterterrorism officials, who believed that the war in Iraq had taken precedence over the real terrorist threat. Why, then, should we believe that Homeland Security is being well run?…

The point is that Katrina should serve as a wakeup call, not just about FEMA, but about the executive branch as a whole. Everything I know suggests that it’s in a sorry state - that an administration which doesn’t treat governing seriously has created two, three, many FEMA’s…

This is an era for the history books - A time I never expected to see in my life-time.

Thomas National