It's not all bad news from Katrina fallout

Republicans were busy little beavers in the weeks before Katrina hit. Among the measures they felt were on top of our national priorities were, slashing Pell grants which allow millions of students the chance to attend college, a proposed third and further tax cut for the wealthy, and continued efforts to kill Social Security softly. Also on tap and likely delayed or killed is the blatantly greedy and unwise attempt to allow multi-million dollar trust fund kids like Paris Hilton to inherit their millions without paying a dime in taxes. This move alone would cost the government tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue. Think they'll still try giving this money to multi-millionaire heirs and heiresses who never have to work a day in their lives rather than to the Katrina relief efforts? I almost hope they do.

One only hopes that the chances of these and other terrible proposals will die, and their ongoing juggernaut of mis-government will be derailed in the wake of Katrina.

But in a positive move by Bush, he announced that victims will be eligible for $2000 per person for emergency relief, allowing them to identify their own priorities. (which unfortunately for a small minority will likely be drugs, booze, or otherwise squandering the money stupidly.) He also announced that some rules requiring identification and other documentation will be waived for those who have lost them. This is a smart move, but one wonders how in the world they will be able to prevent people who were no where near the disaster area from simply walking up and getting all this aid. Without proof of address, it would appear there is no way of knowing if the person is an evacuee or simply an opportunistic scum. One hopes there is at least some sort of safeguards to the program.