Aug. 31, 2005. Photo by Susan Walsh/AP

[ The following letter has been faxed to the White House (202-456-2461). Please see below for a letter faxed to leaders in the House and Senate urging an override of the president’s veto. (The House has done it! 361 to 54—ninety votes more than needed to override.) Please see our ‘Political Action’ page for fax and phone numbers of the White House and Senate. Help us press for a Congressional override of the president’s veto—it would be a first. We’re halfway there. Thank you. ]

November 6, 2007

Dear President Bush:

The nation was inspired by your speech from Jackson Square on Sept. 15, 2005, when you promised “we will do what it takes . . . we will stay as long as it takes . . . to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives” after Katrina. We wanted to believe you were serious.

Sadly, we have watched for over two years as you and recovery czar Donald Powell have assured us that money is coming. But the funds for rebuilding have been “too little, too late”—just like the U.S. response to the “federal flood” resulting from failure of the federally built levees and floodwalls that were weakened by your budget cuts. (You claim you’ve allocated $116 billion for the Gulf Coast, but at least $75 billion of that was for post-storm relief—much of it going to Halliburton and other friends of the Republican Party. Of the remaining portion, only about 40% has actually been spent. As New Orleans City Council member Shelley Midura wrote to you in August, “the only direct federal assistance this city has received from you has been two community disaster loans that you are demanding be paid back.”)

Now you have vetoed the Water Resources Development Act—the first water projects bill in seven years, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support—on an unbelievable claim of fiscal restraint. Water projects authorization bills are normally passed every two years, but none have been passed since you took office. The $23 billion that WRDA would authorize is burned through every two months in the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You have requested $196 billion for those wars in 2008 alone—on top of the Pentagon’s $481 billion ‘operating expenses’ allowance for 2008.

Your veto shows you are not serious about Louisiana and the Gulf Coast’s recovery, and you are not serious about the nation’s aging infrastructure. We hope that you only vetoed this bill as a signal of spending restraint for fiscal conservatives in your own party—a pretense that you knew would be overridden because of the strong support in the House and Senate.

We call on all members of Congress to vote again in favor of WRDA, and we urge the White House to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and apply the money squandered there to strengthen America’s infrastructure, port security, schools, and health care system—to rebuild this nation that has withered under your administration.

Mr. President, you have visited New Orleans no fewer than 16 times since Katrina. Please don’t come back until WRDA is passed and the Army Corps of Engineers gets the funding it needs to “be all it can be.”

November 6, 2007
Dear Senator / Congressman —:

We are writing to urge your support in overriding President Bush’s veto of the popular and much-needed Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), which he claimed contained too much “pork.” As you know, WRDA—the first water projects bill in seven years—was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House and Senate. Water projects authorization bills are normally passed every two years, but none have been passed since Bush took office. The $23 billion that WRDA would authorize is burned through every two months in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush has requested $196 billion for those wars in 2008 alone—on top of the $481 billion 2008 allowance for the Pentagon. We urge you to stand with Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin and not approve any more war funding without a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that at the rate we’re going, war expenses in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next 10 years (including interest) could reach $2.4 trillion.

Bush’s veto of WRDA shows he is not serious about the Gulf Coast’s recovery or about the nation’s aging infrastructure. We hope he only vetoed this bill as a signal of spending restraint for fiscal conservatives in his party—a pretense that he knew would be over-ridden because of the strong support in the House and Senate.

Levees Not War calls on all members of Congress to vote again in favor of WRDA, and then to exert appropriations pressure to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (And do not let him attack Iran!) Instead, apply the taxpayers’ money that would be squandered in wars to strengthen America’s infrastructure, port security, schools, and health care system—to rebuild this nation that has withered under Bush-Cheney.

We hope you agree that “National Security Begins at Home” and that you’ll make the point by voting (again) for WRDA and overriding the president’s misguided veto.

Thank you.