Posted 9/08/2005 05:13:00 PM by Douglas

Don't think that this is the last we're going to hear about misappropriated pork. [Thanks, longtime reader!]

In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times larger.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

The short answer to this is that government failed. How is it that Louisiana even gets almost two billion dollars? And then how do they get away with squandering it? Sadly, the answer to all this will be more government.