RALEIGH – During the two heartbreaking weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities, Congress passed two separate relief bills totaling $62.3 billion. Supporters portrayed the aid packages as emergency measures and desperately needed. But six weeks later, according to media reports, the federal government has spent or contracted to spend only about a quarter of the money, or $16.2 billion.
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco expressed disappointment with the relatively slow spending pace, but other politicians and observers – including members of Congress – have registered their satisfaction that careful analysis and bidding procedures have preceded massive federal expenditures. “If anything,” Rep. John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat, told The Wall Street Journal, federal officials have “probably been a little too quick on the trigger to sign contracts without competitive bidding.”
North Carolina’s Virginia Foxx, a Republican freshman representing the 5th District in Washington, was one of only 11 House members who voted against the second “emergency” relief bill, which totaled $51.8 billion. For this vote, she was excoriated by Democrats in her district and in Raleigh. In retrospect, however, it was Foxx who correctly advocated a less panicked, more reasoned federal response to Katrina.
It was likely her personal experience as a state lawmaker in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd in 1999 that shaped Rep. Foxx’s approach to the issue. She well remembered that then-Gov. Jim Hunt called a special session of the General Assembly to approve a hastily assembled relief package exceeding $800 million. As my colleagues at the John Locke Foundation demonstrated at the time, many of the expenditures included either in the state relief measure or in applications for federal aid were highly questionable. Years later, North Carolina had spent only about half of the Floyd reserve. Eventually, much of the money was transferred to other, higher-priority needs.
I have my own criticisms of the Katrina package. The federal government’s proper role in disaster relief is limited by both the constitution and the taxpayers’ interest in cost-effectiveness. I think it is appropriate for federal taxpayers to pay to rebuild federal facilities, of which there are many along the Gulf Coast. But it shouldn’t be in the flood-insurance business, which creates a moral hazard encouraging more development in disaster-prone areas, and it shouldn’t compel taxpayers to fund local or private rebuilding efforts, in part for the same reason.
Foxx’s public concerns were different but also compelling. She voted for the initial package of $10.5 billion but argued that any subsequent federal dollars should be approved in a deliberate fashion and in smaller, easier-to-manage chunks. The $51.8 billion package was “a large blank check,” her press representative said, so large that it strained credulity to suggest that the entire amount would be needed immediately.
It turns out that Foxx was right. There was no need to say yes to $62.3 billion in the course of just a few days. Congress had the time, and should have taken the time, to consider more carefully the precedent it was setting and to distinguish true federal responsibilities from pork-barrel items slipped into a bill that many thought (correctly) would not draw much legislative scrutiny.
A principled vote on Capitol Hill? Hey, it does happen.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.