On Fri, 02 Sep 2005 18:00:59 GMT, Gunner
wrote:
snip
US Left: All Straws Clutched, Every Barrel Scraped
The Left in the US seems determined to find any angle (ranging from
the irrational to the psychotic) to pin the blame of the devastating
Hurricane Katrina on President Bush.
snip
To search for individuals to blame for this problem, or to
attempt to assign responsibility to a political party, is an
exercise in futility ==if the intent is to prevent or at least
mitigate recurrence.==

As I indicated in another post, large, high density urban areas
appear to be the root cause of most of the problems. To be sure
small, low density and rural areas have also had their share of
disasters, but because of dispersal and easier "escape," these
have been much more manageable.

The continual US population shift to ever larger and ever-higher
density urban areas, concentrated on or near the coastlines, is a
sure-fire recipe for major disasters, both natural and man-made
(terrorist), although it is highly profitable for the politically
well-connected few.

As Congress is fond of tinkering with the tax code to correct
social problems, I suggest a multiplier be applied to the amount
of corporate and individual income taxes due to the Federal
government based on the population density of your home address,
as indicated by the home's zip+4 postal code. Thus you might pay
1.8X or 180% of the standard income tax with an address in
Manhattan, San Francisco, etc., but only .4X or 40% of the
standard income tax if you lived in Caney, Kansas. The
multiplier can be increased as required to more uniformly
distribute the US population and industry in less
dense/vulnerable ways.