Bush Favors Texas Over Louisiana -- Even Bobby Jindal Notices

Governor Jindal has noticed a disparity between the federal government's willingness to lift a recovery burden off the state of Texas and its refusal to do the same for Louisiana.
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As horrible as Hurricane Ike was to Texas, and it was, one can't help noticing the disparity in death tolls between Ike and Katrina. It is dispositive, I think, as to the difference between even the nastiest of hurricanes (the Ike event) and the breaching in more than fifty places of federally-built levees (the Katrina event).

Louisiana's Republican Governor Bobby Jindal has noticed another disparity, that between the federal government's willingness to lift a recovery burden off the state of Texas and its refusal to do the same for Louisiana.

Bush decided Tuesday to have FEMA pick up 100 percent of the costs for debris removal and emergency measures that Texas governments incurred when Hurricane Ike blasted ashore at Galveston last week.

When Jindal saw that, he decided to renew his call for eliminating the 25 percent share Louisiana must pay for the public costs from both Ike and Hurricane Gustav, which hit the state 12 days earlier.

"Singularly, each was a major disaster; combined, these storms amount to a catastrophic event for the state," Jindal wrote.

Even electing a Republican Governor can't help Louisiana keep this President's thumb off the scale.

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