The Associated Press and ABC News report that on the same day the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed (Aug. 2), Bush administration officials announced the White House would veto a $20 billion water-projects bill that the president claimed was “laden with pork-barrel programs.”
Infrastructure
A Brief History of Bush Cuts to Flood Control
From 2001 to 2005, the Bush administration’s budget allocations for New Orleans area hurricane protection averaged one-fifth of the amount requested by Louisiana officials. In the 2005 budget, Louisiana requested about $26 million; even after the very active hurricane season of 2004, the Bush White House offered only about $4 million, an amount that the U.S. spends about every 20 minutes in Iraq. (Current U.S. expenditures in Iraq now run at approximately $10 million per hour, roughly $12 billion per month.)