Government’s role in response to Katrina
I stand in awe at the overwhelming private response to the Katrina disaster. Websites immediately popped up, on which tens of thousands of generous angels have offered to share their homes with perfect strangers. Non-profits such as the Red Cross and companies like Wal-Mart have shown remarkable energy and kindness.
Then there is the government. It’s now painfully clear that government cannot protect or help us. Despite its best intentions, incompetence reigns supreme. Recall Sept. 11, the space shuttle disasters, the Iraq war, the gigantic spending and deficits, the failed wars on poverty and drugs.
We need to consider a new approach to government. Government performs many essential services, but the problem seems to be that, by law, it is a monopoly. It spends other people’s money, and doesn’t have to worry about profit or loss, or losing customers. As with any monopoly, service deteriorates while prices (taxes) rise.
Perhaps we are wrong to think government must be a monopoly. I’d like to see government be a subscription service – government by literal consent of the governed. A government in a competitive environment would never have let those New Orleans levees fall into such disrepair.
John Schola, Littleton
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I am sure all of your readers are asking why our federal government was so slow to send aid to New Orleans and surrounding areas after the recent hurricane. Let me offer a two-part answer for consideration.
First, this administration is determined to shrink our federal government in order to justify the previous tax cuts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is a prime example of an essential government agency that has been rendered toothless, folded into the Department of Homeland Security, and saddled with an inexperienced director in Michael Brown. When the hurricane hit, President Bush was in Crawford, Texas, hoping that the local and state response would be adequate, and he wouldn’t have to appropriate much federal funding to the area.
Second, one of the broken levees in New Orleans was slated to be repaired and strengthened several years ago. But the federal funds were redirected to the conflict in Iraq. Try telling that to the victims’ families.
Jeremy Van Hoy, Colorado Springs
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When I saw Craig F. Walker’s front-page photo (Sept. 5) of 89- year-old hurricane survivor Raymond Brown eating peanut butter crackers, his first food in days, at the New Orleans airport, I cried. If it weren’t for photojournalists and reporters who are risking their lives and health to put a human face on the disaster left in Hurricane Katrina’s wake, Americans like Brown would probably still be starving and dying in the Superdome, on highway overpasses and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast. A huge thanks to the media for shining a spotlight on our fellow Americans who desperately need help.
Kathy Erbacher, Denver
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Why don’t the news media stop bashing President Bush regarding the disaster in New Orleans and instead ask where the mayor and Louisiana governor were? Why didn’t they have a plan? If many people in New Orleans didn’t have a means to get out of town, why wasn’t the public transportation system mobilized? Let’s put the blame where it really belongs.
Alice Wilson, Aurora
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Let’s consider President Bush’s performance regarding Hurricane Katrina. Imagine if we’d had these leaders:
Winston Churchill and the Great Boat Lift: Churchill orders all buses and all small-boat owners to meet at a strategic safe point just above the flooded New Orleans. The small-boat owners go out, get the people, and row them back to safe buses.
Martin Luther King and the Great March Out: King speaks at the Superdome, the convention center, and takes to the streets. All are thrilled at his words. Everyone takes a child or elderly person on their shoulders and wades out singing “We Shall Overcome.”
John F. Kennedy and the Great Appeal: JFK gets on the radio and asks the American people to open their hearts and doors. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for New Orleans.” The refugees are settled with new jobs in a matter of weeks, as small-business owners add employees and every house opens its spare room.
Deena Larsen, Lakewood
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No one would deny the overwhelming needs coming out of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. At the same time, as we are pouring our hearts and wallets, we need to remember those in our own backyard who struggle on a daily basis. Places like the Denver Rescue Mission, the Food Bank of the Rockies and many other local organizations need your help as well to deal with day-to- day life here in Colorado. As we enter the fall and head for harsher weather, let us also help our neighbors.
Jon Scheer, Highlands Ranch
Rising price of fuel
The high gas prices are painful, but it may be even more painful if there are gas shortages, as is likely. President Bush requested that we be “prudent,” but we may need to do more than that. A strength of the free-market system is that a shortage causes a price increase and the needed decrease in consumption. What we need for the next couple of months is a larger gas tax to reduce consumption. The tax dollars can then be used for rebuilding after Katrina – instead of the extra money going to the gas companies.
Sarah Kurtz, Golden
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Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News (Sept. 5 editorial cartoon) depicts a cop arresting a Big Oil executive as he attempts to jack the price of gas from $3.05 a gallon to $4.86. If only this were true. The media seems only focused on poor, black looters in New Orleans. Why aren’t these white-collar, gas- price-gouging executives being arrested and prosecuted? Where is our attorney general? Why doesn’t our government do something?
B. Koch, Aurora
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If you read Diane Carman’s Sept. 4. column (“Oil profiteers employing slick tactics”), you now know why gas prices are so high. Oil companies are profiteering big-time and making huge profits. In years past, our government has stepped in to control price gouging. President Bush will do nothing; Big Oil helped him get the job. So we all pay more and say nothing?
Marvin Malk, Aurora
Offensive quarterback
Re: “Van Pelt apologizes for antics,” Sept. 6 sports story.
In a demonstration of arrogant and classless behavior at Saturday’s game between Colorado and Colorado State, Denver Broncos backup quarterback Bradlee Van Pelt reached an all-time low before 54,972 Colorado football fans with his obscene gestures, tasteless attire, and conduct not befitting an NFL quarterback. The young man, who had an outstanding career with the Colorado State Rams, has become a local hero in the Broncos organization. Foremost in that role is a respect for the game, and accepting the responsibility as a mentor for Colorado’s young fans.
Sorely lacking in wisdom, Van Pelt sported a gold T-shirt inscribed with an obscene word and proceeded to flip off the Colorado crowd with a double-whammy dose of bad taste and stupidity.
Van Pelt has a lot of fences to mend in order to regain the respect of Colorado sports fans.
Janie Enright, Silt
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