Another Angle on Katrina: Are we Americans More Willing to Spend Money to Kill than to Save Lives?

I'm guessing that when most Americans read the title of this article, they will be offended at the suggestion. We Americans pride ourselves on being humanitarians, willing to do whatever necessary to alleviate the suffering of our fellow man and resorting to war only when absolutely necessary. I know we like to think of ourselves that way, and I think those thoughts and feelings are genuine, but do we and our government respond according to those values with our wallets?

In 2005, the US will spend approximately 80 Billion dollars on the war in Iraq, bringing our total expenditures on that war to over 200 Billion. In contrast, the total requested 2005 budget for USAID, the US Agency responsible for doling out assistance to foreign countries for disaster relief, health and economic growth concerns, is only 3.6 Billion Dollars. FEMA, The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the government body tasked with responding to, planning for, recovering from and mitigating against disasters has a 2005 budget of only 7.3 Billion Dollars.

I want to underline the last part of FEMA's mission, 'mitigating against disasters'. Imagine if 1/50th of the total Iraq expenditures (4 Billion Dollars) had instead been allocated to FEMA with the express purpose of being spent to shore up the levees and water pumps surrounding and protecting New Orleans? The idea shouldn't be viewed as 20/20 hindsight. It has been known for years, and a Discovery Channel show broadcast over a year ago highlighted the fact, that New Orleans would suffer particularly devastating affects from a strike by a major hurricane. Improving New Orleans' defenses against such a disaster should have easily made a top ten list for necessary expenditures by FEMA to mitigate potential disasters. I'll bet if records are pulled, FEMA has in fact had that on a list for some time, it simply does not have the budget to do anything about it.

Let's go back to 1997. On February 12th of that year, then Vice President Gore presented a report by a commission he chaired on Aviation Safety and Security. His commission proposed a new and vigorous multi-layer approach to aviation security that in all likelihood would have prevented Mohammed Atta and his gang of terrorist thugs from being able to board those flights on September 11th. It would have cost between four and six Billion dollars to implement and several hundred million a year to maintain. The Airline industry cried at the thought of those expenditures to their Republican champions in the senate who mounted a concerted effort that torpedoed most of the commission's recommendations. Does anyone want to hazard a guess at what not implementing those measures and spending those dollars has cost us in terms of both dollars and lives?

Our elected leaders, particularly Republicans, have to stop playing politics with spending the necessary money to protect us from threats of ALL kinds. Sure, they have a lot to say NOW about protecting us from terrorists (does anyone recall that saying about the horse and closing the barn door?), but what about the other dangers out there, things we know are potential catastrophes?

Here is what should be done. First, make a list of potential disasters and sort them by likelihood, and potential for death and destruction. Each year, allocate the money necessary to do as much as possible to mitigate the top five to ten on the list. In ten years, the top fifty to one hundred potential disasters will be addressed, not a bad mark by anyone's standards. Whether one agrees with the Iraq war or not, we certainly are funding it about as much as anyone could hope. Shouldn't we do the same or more to help save the lives of our fellow Americans?

Steven Leser, August 31, 2005