It is true that we have been reducing, not increasing, the level of maintenance for the pumps and levees of New Orleans.  I know it, you know it , here are 4 examples.  BUT THIS DOESN'T MATTER.  What we must do is decide whether New Orleans deserves a Category 3 level of protection, or Category 4 or Category 5.  If our government can't decide, let's you and me decide.  Since they can't foresee or cope with a storm that will top their levees, I vote for Category 5. 

EXAMPLE 1: CUTS in HURRICANE PROTECTION

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requested $27 million for this fiscal year (2005) to pay for hurricane-protection projects around Lake Pontchartrain. The Bush administration countered with $3.9 million, and Congress eventually provided $5.7 million, according to figures provided by the office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). Budget shortfalls occurring during the war in Iraq have caused seven contracts to be delayed, including enlarging the levees, according to Army Crops of Engineers documents.


EXAMPLE 2: ABANDONED PLANNING FOR EVACUATIONS AND SHELTERING

When Michael D. Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, returned in January 2005 from a tour of the tsunami devastation in Asia, he urgently gathered his aides to prepare for a similar catastrophe at home. "New Orleans was the No. 1 disaster we were talking about," recalled Eric L. Tolbert, then a top FEMA official. "We were obsessed with New Orleans because of the risk." Mr. Tolbert said that "funding dried up" for follow-up to the Hurricane Pam exercise begun in 2004, cutting off work on plans to shelter thousands of survivors.

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050902/ZNYT02/509020460


EXAMPLE 3: ABANDON LEVEE CONSTRUCTION

In June of 2004, the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for levee construction in New Orleans was cut by a record $71.2 million. Jefferson Parish emergency management chief Walter Maestri said at the time, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."


EXAMPLE 4: IF ANYONE SAYS "STOP ABANDONING ALL THIS," THEN FIRE HIM

Mike Parker, Assistant Secretary of the Army and the head of the Army Corp of Engineers, drew media attention (and the White House's ire) in 2002 by telling the Senate Budget Committee that a White House proposal to cut just over $2 billion from the Corps' $6 billion budget request would have a "negative impact" on the national interest. On 7 March 2002, Parker resigned about noon after being given about 30 minutes to choose between resigning or being fired.