August 29, 2006

In the one year since Katrina, Bush has failed to follow through with some key promises he made to the victims.

And he’s forgotten the meaning of the two words he learned back then: poverty and race, words that barely have passed his lips since his opportunistic speech down in Jackson Square last September.

You remember that one, don’t you? Bush standing alone in the lit square, while the rest of New Orleans had no electricity.

That night, Bush pledged many things.

I remember listening to the speech and thinking, wow, he sounds almost like FDR.

Take this passage, for instance: “To help lower-income citizens in the hurricane region build new and better lives, I also propose that Congress pass an Urban Homesteading Act,” said Bush. “Under this approach, we will identify property in the region owned by the federal government, and provide building sites to low-income citizens free of charge.”

Or this one: “I propose the creation of Worker Recovery Accounts to help those evacuees who need extra help finding work,” he said. “Under this plan, the federal government would provide accounts of up to $5,000, which these evacuees could draw upon for job training and education to help them get a good job, and for child care expenses during their job search.”

Well, guess what?

Nothing ever came of the Urban Homesteading Act, and nothing ever came of Worker Recover Accounts.

Bush appears to not even have lifted a finger for them.

The Urban Homesteading Act went to a Senate subcommittee on December 13, 2005, and a House subcommittee on January 10, 2005, never to be heard from again.

A similar fate befell the Urban Homesteading Act.

Had Bush wanted to, he could have pressed his Republican colleagues, who control Congress, to pass these bills. He did not.

Bush’s speech was too good to be true. Like much of his propaganda, it was a mere mask of compassion.