Guardian: Hurricane aid used 'to test out rightwing social policies'
President Bush's multi-billion dollar reconstruction plans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina are being used as "a vast laboratory" for conservative social polices, administration critics claim. The White House strategy involves the suspension of a series of regulations guaranteeing the going local wage and affirmative action for minorities, while offering tax incentives for businesses in the affected region. Education aid for displaced children will include $500m (£276m) in vouchers for private schools, while a senior Republican has also proposed a new law permitting a wide-ranging waiver of environmental regulations.


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Add to that a homeownership initiative that will involve zillions of condo and townhome units, all with private governments run by poor people with no education. Just what New Orleans needs.

We are looking at an effort to transform an entire city. I think the rhetoric is that they are taking probably the worst city-sized example of failed welfare state policies and using ideas from the Republican playbook to make it into a success. If this works, we will have a new paradigm for urban renewal. If it doesn't work--and I can think of one other Bush administration transformative effort that isn't going according to plan--then what? I suppose we will hear that having started we can't stop or even talk about stopping or changing course, because that will only embolden the terrorists. Oops. That's the other example.