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Text Box: OVER $100,000,000.00, HAS BEEN COLLECTED by retired Presidents Bush and Clinton for hurricanes Katrina and Rita relief. An estimated six million to ten million people were directly effected by the hurricanes. FEMA and the SBA have not been as effective as they could have been in providing relief. The Churches, Red Cross, Salvation Army, and other charitable organizations have been hard pressed in providing relief. Suggestion: Give one million dollars of the over $100,000,000.0, to each person effected by these two hurricanes and let the recipients rebuild their lives with the assistance of that money. Do not have a means test for the distribution. Make the only qualification for receipt of the $1,000,000.00, be that the recipient lived in the effected area at the time of either hurricane, even if they were away from the effected area at the time of either storm, or that the recipient was in the effected area at the time of either storm. The mayor gets a million and the mayor’s spouse gets a million and each of the mayor’s minor children living at home gets a million, as does the homeless guy living under the bridge, the radio announcer, you, your spouse, each of your children living at home even if they were away at school at the time of the storm, your mother, each news reporter and staffer even if only visiting to cover the storm, the ones who are already millionaires and the ones who are paupers and everyone in between. If someone died during or after either hurricane the money goes to their estate. The one million dollars should be tax free, totally exempt from income and all other taxes Federal, State, and local (except for inheritance taxes since exemption from inheritance taxes would be very difficult to track) - sales taxes will eat up the money fast enough. The rich, powerful, political types, government, and various organizations will still have over $90,000,000.00, to split amongst themselves, while actually allowing those harmed by the storms to rebuild their lives. SWAMP AND MARSH LANDS RESTORATION and FILLING IN

Text Box: THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER GULF OUTLET (MRGO) could receive significant assistance by using the U.S. Dredge Wheeler. According to a June 19, 2005, article by Adam Nossiterap in The Advocate, (a Baton Rouge, Louisiana newspaper), the Wheeler, owned by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, is the nations largest dredging ship, capable of sucking up 7,000 dump-truck loads of muck, silt, mud, and sand every day. But it is only allowed to work fifty-five days each year, so that the private dredge companies can obtain contracts to dredge the Mississippi River passes below New Orleans. The MRGO is a canal dredged by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers in the mid 1960’s. It was to provide a shipping short cut from the Gulf of Mexico to the Port of New Orleans, but it never was used to any great extent. Over the years storms and the few ships which do use the MRGO have washed away the marsh and even the firm land on either side of the waterway, killing vast areas of marsh and swamp which once protected Saint Bernard Parish and the City of New Orleans from flooding and storm surge. The waterway regularly silts up and has to be dredged to maintain a useful depth. If it were not dredged, it would continue to provide a virtually straight path for storm surge from the Gulf of Mexico to Saint Bernard and New Orleans, for while it will silt, it will not silt closed. The waterway has widened from erosion, to more than twice its designed width. During hurricane Katrina a thirty foot high wall of water from storm surge came up the MRGO, over topped the levees, flooding all of Saint Bernard Parish and a major portion of New Orleans which abuts Saint Bernard. If the MRGO were closed, it is possible that some local shipping might have to be provided with alternate waterways, particularly shipping from the NASA Michaud facility, but it seems likely that such could be provided through a waterway named Bayou Michaud, and other portions of the Intracoastal Waterway (or modifications to the Industrial Canal). That can all be

Text Box: worked out. Seven thousand dump truck loads of muck each day, dumped into the MRGO, and used to rebuild the marshes and swamps of Southern Louisiana, obviously will not by itself remediate the problems caused by wetlands loss and the MRGO. But projects such as this one could be used to rebuild the marsh and swamps of all of Southern Louisiana, Western Mississippi, and Eastern Texas. The U.S. Dredge Wheeler, is already crewed, ready to sail, and to work. But it is not and does not because the United States Congress is throwing money into the private sector - read graft, corruption, pork barrel, and situation normal. THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF NEW ORLEANS is logically tied to its position as the port at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Agricultural commerce from the midlands of North America easily and logically flows on the River, as do certain mineral and manufactured products. Not only does New Orleans have its international port, one of the largest in the world. It also has excellent rail road and motor vehicle transportation systems (even though its local roads are in deplorable condition). It also has access to virtually unlimited water, and every type of energy (gas, electric, nuclear, etc.). These, combined with a labor force, and honest government, are the ingredients necessary for industry and manufacturing. Unfortunately, New Orleans does not have good elementary and high school education systems. But it does have several universities and colleges, and the area supports a good industrial / technical education system. The labor force required by manufacturing and industry is available, and can be supplemented through additional education of the existing labor force, as well as by importation of experienced or qualified labor. Economic development therefore hinges on the honesty and integrity of the New Orleans and Louisiana

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