Talking about politicians who represent YOUR state. Check out one of OUR senators:

Landrieu: We might have been better off if terrorists had blown up the levees

Louisiana Senator blasts federal response, bias she says that favors Mississippi

10:05 AM CST on Monday, January 29, 2007

WWLTV.com

Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu had harsh words for the federal government on the eve of hearings into the progress of rebuilding the Gulf Coast following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Landrieu blamed the government for much of the devastation caused by Katrina and for the slow pace of recovery in Louisiana.

“I often think we would have been better off if the terrorists had blown up our levees,� she said. “Maybe we’d have gotten more attention.�

The truth of the matter is that the federal government has dumped a huge amount of money into Louisiana already, and with the all too predictable result. The billions earmarked to help people rebuild homes damaged by hurricanes Rita and Katrina are held by the state while a cozy deal with a contractor has made the average person’s access to that money a matter of navigating a typical Louisiana bureaucracy fraught with plans and forms and interviews. The contractor has multiple thousands of applications for help, but has only issued a few dozen checks.

The work in New Orleans is not being held up for lack of money, it’s being held up because New Orleans has about as much of a plan for rebuilding as it did for evacuating its citizens before the hurricane, i.e., NONE. Of course, there have been plenty of consultants and town-hall meetings, all funded with your dollars. They just don’t have a plan yet.

But that’s New Orleans. And Louisiana in general as pertains to our government. Over here in the land devastated by “the hurricane that didn’t happen” the areas hit by Hurricane Rita, life is getting marvelously on. Despite a new layer of requirements and standards for rebuilding, people ARE rebuilding. Businesses are open in Cameron, that little town flattened by Rita, and more are opening every week. Holly Beach, wiped clean, has the beginnings of new birth.

It’s totally amazing what happens when you have REAL people who take responsibility for their lives instead a whining that the latest government handout isn’t enough.

And Governess Blanco and Senator “Katrina Mary” Landieu have a vested interest in repopulating New Orleans because without that big bloc of New Orleans dimmocrat votes, NEITHER of them would be in office today…

Or vice versa.

I spent a goodly amount of time on the road this week, skittering from one compressor station to another, peeking at things that might have been MY problem, only to find out that the ball belongs in somebody else’s arena. In doing all that driving, I listen to the radio, you know those troublesome conservative talk shows like Rush Limbaugh and our state equivalent, Moon Griffon, and Sean Hannity. I shouldn’t do that. It makes me really, really angry.

A lot of folks don’t know that Louisiana is in the state it’s in because we elected a “populist” for a governor back a few decades ago, one Huey Long. He swept into office promising a chicken in every pot, and in order to provide all those chickens, he leaned heavily on taxing business and industry. As a result, Louisiana has an inordinate number of state employees and a system of taxes and fees that work very hard to kill business prospects in this state. The only thing that saves us is that we have a few geographical advantages that can offset the premiums a business must pay in taxes to be here. It’s hard to ship out of the heartland of America if you don’t take advantage fo the Mississippi River, and if you’re going to do things like refine oil, situating yourself along the Mississippi River on the east side of the state, or the Calcasieu River on the west side, those two little geographical features will save a lot of money, offsetting a lot of tax burdens.

the flip side, of course, is that a lot of companies who used to be based in New Orleans but that did not need the geographical location ahve long since pulled up stakes for less taxing territory, like those nasty places in Texas, like Houston.

Which brings me to an observation: Louisiana is still a decent place to make a living if you’re of a mind to. I’m here. I have been middle-class successful since the day I shucked my green fatigues in 1977. Yes, I could have been equally successful in other locales, but this is where my roots are. Family ancestors have been here since the British ran us out of Acadia (Nova Scotia) in the middle 1700’s. Roots count for something, and this is where family is. I still count family over money, so I’m still here.

But Louisiana is only able to support the profligacies of its socialist leanings BECAUSE of the success of me and thousands of other productive citizens. Our taxes and a very healthy influx of Federal dollars allow us to keep a big segment of non-producers sheltered and fed. Hurricane Katrina was like kicking over a rotten log in this state. You knew something was under there, but you just weren’t sure how ugly it was. The country saw just how ugly the underside of New Orleans was.

I have news: New Orleans isn’t alone in its plight as it refers to the permanent underclass. This area has it, and people know it. I watched a middle-class neighborhood drop down the toilet after our local “progressive” social engineers decided that locating a government housing project in the neighborhood would be good for the “poor” who would soon occupy it. When a quiet working-class neighborhood awoke to find unheard-of crime problems, break-ins, molestations, muggings, drugs, they abandoned the place. The whole neighborhood dropped to the level of the underclass as the wage-earners did what people who earn a living CAN do: they moved.

You wander what allowing Hillary Clinton and the left-wing side of the Democrat Party would do to this country? Pass your eye down here to Louisiana and see what we have. America will get the same.

The only up side to this is that FINALLY Louisiana will get some competition at the bottom of all those lists.