Louisiana Senators ask for 1/4 of a trillion dollars for reconstruction

Senators Landrieu (D) and Vitter (R) have submitted S. 1765 (Summary) (To provide disaster relief and incentives for economic recovery for Louisiana residents and businesses affected by Hurricane Katrina) which proposes $250 billion in disaster relief just for Louisiana. We can probably expect to see a similar bill coming out of Mississippi and Alabama.

Since our representatives in the House and Senate probably have yet to find their desktop calculators that were blown away by Katrina, Porkopolis thought it would provide a bit of assistance to put the $250 billion in perspective.

Louisiana population is 4,468,976, not all of which was affected by the hurricane. A reasonable assumption is to say that half the population was in the path of the hurricane. That would be about 2,234,488, but to keep calculations simple we'll round up the affected popoulation to 2, 500,000. That 2.5 million of affected Louisiana residents will make for an easy calculation.

$250 billion divided by 2.5 million affected residentes results in a disaster relief request of.....(drum rooooooooooll)...$100,000 per person!

That's per person...not per household.

Somebody in Washington has got to get a clue!

Update: Designated Counties for Louisiana Hurricane Katrina details that 31 parishes were designated as disaster areas (see map). Using the population information from http://county-map.digital-topo-maps.com/louisiana.shtml and adding up the population for the 31 parishes, one gets an affected population of 3,109,601. Using this as the divisor for our per capita calculation ($250 billion / 3,109,601) results in a spending request of $80,396 per person...still a huge number.

Update 2: BizzyBlog thinks the actual number of affected Louisianans is more like 1 million instead of 3 million, which would result in a larger per person expenditure of $250,000.

For now, Porkopolis is sticking with the admittedly 'liberal' 3 million affected persons number, but is actively searching for official government statistics. Anyone finding official numbers is encouraged to email them to Porkopolis or just place a link in the comments section.


Update 3:
From: The Club for Growth (Hope that's not Lance Armstrong on the bike there.)



Update 4: WWLTV.COM

"It's all vital," said Landrieu. "There's not anything in here that we would consider a wish list or pie in the sky. This is what we really believe is essential."

Yeah...right....like the:

(Stop Watch started...5 minute limit to review S. 1765):

• $100 million for "psychological trauma response early intervention, prevention, and disorder treatment by culturally competent counselors and mental health professionals for children who are 0 to 5 years of age; see page 38, line 1.
• $100 million for mosquito abatement; see page 39, line 12.
• $1 billion "shall be used for a program to aid the travel and tourism industry"; see page 45, line 17
• $5 million for Project Serv under the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act; see page 49, line 13
• NOAA weather radio for every eligible person; see Sec. 526 .

(Aaaaand...Times Up!)

All of the above were found within just 5 minutes of a very quick review of S. 1765.

The Academy Award for keeping a straight face while totally bullshitting the American public goes to Senator Mary Landrieu. Senator Vitter doesn't fair well in this either.

(HT: Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear)