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I've already written that I believe it is a betrayal of the NY Times loyal left and democratic reader base to take one of the left's most insightful, eloquent spokesmen, away from us. Occassionally, I'll review Krugman articles, adding my own opinions and comments so as to meet the legal requirements associated with

Krugman wonders if the question should be if, not when Bush will deliver on his promise to pay for “the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen.” Krugman says,

“First, Mr. Bush already has a record of trying to renege on pledges to a stricken city. After 9/11 he made big promises to New York. But as soon as his bullhorn moment was past, officials began trying to wriggle out of his pledge. By early toot his budget director was accusing New York’s elected representatives who wanted to know what had happened to the promised aid, of engaging in a “money-grubbing gam.” It’s not clear how much federal help the city has actually received.”

Krugman says that congress is now in recess, that by the time it returns, seven weeks will have passed since Katrina and the levee floods, observes

“And the administration has spent much of that time blocking efforts to aid Katrina’s victims.”

Krugman wonders:

“…why the news media haven’t made more of the White House role in stalling a bipartisan bill that would have extended Medicaid coverage to all low-income hurricane victims—some of whom, according to the surveys, can’t afford needed medicine.”

He also brings up the craven position the White House is taking, insisting that disaster loans to local governments that don’t have tax bases any more will not be forgiven. He calls it “cruel and unusual.” He adds,

”Since the administration is already nickel-and-diming Katrina’s victims, it’s a good bet that it will do the same with reconstruction—that is, if reconstruction ever gets started,”

Krugman points out that that there are “…no visible signs that the administration has even begun developing a plan.” He reports that while his paper, the NY Times, reported that Karl Rove was placed in charge, Rove has been “a lot less visible” since he’s been the subject of speculation that he’ll be indicted by prosecutors of the Plame case, and asks if Rove was ever running the reconstruction. Scott McClellan was asked who was running the reconstruction and he replied, “The President.”

Now that’s a joke. The only thing Bush is good at is running things into the ground—businesses, war efforts, diplomacy, world’s most powerful nation, ecology, democracy. The people of the gulf are doomed, if he’s in charge. The good news is that Clinton appointee, James Lee Witt, who Bush complimented for his competence, is helping out.
Pathetically, the NY Times, instead of covering his work as a shining oasis of great work in a sea of Bush crony incompetence, takes the angle with this title and sub-title, FEMA Director Under Clinton Profits From Experience As a consultant, James Lee Witt is having to step deftly to avoid being perceived as a disaster profiteer. The Times is taking a thinly veiled swipe at the one man who could have done a a good job if he was in charge of FEMA.

Since it is likely that “Bush will remain hostile to domestic spending that might threaten his tax cuts.” So he speculates that there will be foot dragging as a natural political response as a way to deal with the Katrina reconstruction—a way to prevent any tax raises. Others have said that any money that Bush puts up will be borrowed from the Chinese, putting the US further into debt.

Krugman reports that he’s reading an “important book, OFF CENTER, by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, Yale and Berkeley political scientists. He reports the book’s goal is to explain

“how Republicans, who face a generally moderate electorate and won recent national elections by “the slimmest of margins,” have nonetheless been able to advance a radical rightist agenda.

“One of their “new rules for radicals” is “Don’t just do something, stand there.”

.

He observes that “sometimes frontal assaults on government programs tend to fail, as Mr. Bush learned in his hapless attempt to sell Social Security privatization.” He quotes the authors, Hacker and Pierson, who point out, “Sometimes decisions not to act can be a powerful means of reshaping the role of government.” Krugman mentions the minimum wage as an example which the public strongly supports, but conservatives actually cut by allowing inflation to eat into wages through their inaction.

Krugman wraps up the article suggesting he may be overanalyzing, that it may not be intentional foot dragging. Maybe it’s just “out-of-touch leadership and a lack of competent people.

Maybe he’s right both ways—intentional foot-dragging, withholding of funds and real leadership and plans for reconstruction until his crony deals or all in place and then too, he has filled the government with incompetents.

Krugman’s article applies to Katrina, but the title of the article, “Will Bush Deliver?” is a beauty that could be applied to a plethora of Bush Whitehouse and Republican themes—protecting the US from terrorism, improving education, decreasing the size of government… I wrote a piece a few weeks ago recapping the Republicans’ Biggest Lies that sums up a lot of ways that Bush and his Republican rubber-stampers in congress don’t deliver on their promises, and more recently, a RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

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Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

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