Myth Number One: The main impediment to rebuilding the Gulf Coast is a lack of federal money.
Talk with people on the Gulf Coast area and you'll soon learn the primary problem they face is not a lack of funding, but the mass confusion created by federal, state, and local governments about the rules of the game when it comes to rebuilding. Confusing and contradictory regulations, showboating by politicians, and stunningly complex bureaucracy have only exacerbated the problems of people who've already been through hell and have kept people from making the decisions they need to make to get on with their lives. This creates what economist Emily Chamlee-Wright calls "signal noise"—the persistent uncertainty created by uncoordinated government at every step of the recovery process....
Two years after Katrina, the CBO reports that FEMA had spent only about 66 percent of its supplemental appropriations for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. Only 28 percent of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding had been spent. A billion dollars in approved Small Business Administration loans have yet to be dispersed. And the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has yet to even allocate 15 percent of its Katrina-specific budget, much less disperse it.
(Two more myths in the next two days)
