Katrina - Paying the Piper

Thankfully, for the sake of the people in its wake, the federal government seems to be preparing much better for Hurricane Rita than it did for Hurricane Katrina. Those preparations put the lie to the spinmeisters of the Bush Administration and its apologists that it did not have the authority to act prior to Katrina - for there certainly has been no new authorization to act passed by Congress since Katrina.
 
The cleanup of Katrina is estimated to cost at least $200 billion. With Hurricane Rita now in the gulf, headed for the Texas coast, who knows what the cleanup cost for that will be. Presumably, George Bush is not going to do any less for Texas than he has promised for Louisiana, Mississippi, etc.
 
Responsible members of Congress are concerned about how we are going to pay for the cleanup. Unfortunately, the initial answers coming from the Republican majority and the Bush Administration seem to be focused on the backs of the less advantaged citizens among us.
 
One thing seems certain. The issue of how to pay for the cleanup would be much simpler with the $236 billion dollar budget surplus that the Clinton Administration left the Bush Administration than it is with the estimated $331 billion budget deficit for the current fiscal year that the Bush Administration has saddled us with