Rebuilding the Gulf States

[300miles]

Gulf states plot economic recovery deal

Monday September 12, 2:16 PM EDT

BATON ROUGE (Reuters) - Economic officials from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are working together to craft a package of tax credits and bonds to keep businesses from leaving in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana's top economic official said on Monday.

Michael Olivier, the state secretary of economic development, became a bit emotional during a news conference when he talked about the offers of help Louisiana has received from corporate America.

"We're getting calls from friends who want to help Louisiana. It's amazing," Olivier said. "My God, the offers."

More than 70,000 businesses across 10 parishes were affected by the storm, from big businesses like Procter & Gamble Co.'s (PG) coffee operations to small businesses like restaurants. The state's immediate goals are to make sure those companies do not leave permanently and that they have the financial resources to rebuild.

"All three states are pretty much working together to mold something," Olivier said, adding he was heading to Washington tomorrow to start working on getting a package through Congress.

"We're going to incent (businesses) to come back with a significant package so they'll really think twice (about leaving)," Olivier said. The package is intended to be modeled on the recovery benefits that were approved four years ago after the September 11 attacks.

Later, in a separate interview at Louisiana homeland security headquarters here, Olivier acknowledged reports that neighboring states that are hosting displaced businesses may be trying to win some of those companies over permanently.

"We have some poaching going on," he said.

But the state is doing what it can to help companies get their operations running again, he said, including getting them trailers to house their workers.

Olivier said the Federal Emergency Management Agency has bought 100,000 trailers, each of which can house about four people, and those trailers are being distributed to refineries and other essential businesses to get the economy humming again.

"The amount of aid that's going to be deployed is astronomical. It should give us the traction to build a greater New Orleans river region," he said.

[300miles]

I thought it was interesting to read about the Gulf states complaining about other states poaching their jobs. Gee. Don't they see any irony there?

But also, I thought we northerners should have also banded multiple states together like they are doing. Maybe if NY, PA, OH, MI all came up with a regional plan to keep jobs and coordinate federal aid, then the region may have survived better than it has. Kindof a Lake Erie team effort. Instead we continue to compete against each other.

[Caledon]

300miles, thats BRILLIANT! You should tell more people about that idea!!!!!

Believe it or not, there is a Great Lakes consortium of states that passes legislation to protect and maintain the Great Lakes and its watershed.

I like your idea to expand that into areas of jointly developing our economies, job creation, trade, etc as a region.

I like it, who could we tell it to ..... that could actually make it happen.

[Caledon]

oh and by the way, NO was already suffering from a loss of business & population to other regional cities

The statistics I checked said that NO had lost 30% of its population since the 60s

and much of its business was migrating to other regional centers.

Cant say more, cause thats all I know but this disaster is certainly going to exasperate that trend....and I would guess that more businesses will locate further up river on higher ground like Baton Rouge

and I would guess there is going to be significant wetlands restoration and restrictions on redevelopment in the lowlands. Those lowland neighborhoods may be abandoned permanently and restored to wetland so they can build up and protect more of the city.

[Stevenco]

The Bush admin has been trying to rebulild the Gulf States for a few years now.

[300miles]

Originally posted by Caledon
I like your idea to expand that into areas of jointly developing our economies, job creation, trade, etc as a region.

I like it, who could we tell it to ..... that could actually make it happen.
I don't know really. It could be any level of govt - US senators or congresmen, state senate, governor... even the mayors of individual cities. The problem with the state level is NYS focuses on NYC, and PA focuses on Philadelphia. If we focus on our great lakes region instead of state boundaries, we'd get Toronto, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit.... even Grand Rapids, Chicago and Milwaukee if we kept going west. All those cities probably have more in common with each other than with the rest of their states. And we'd have economic anchors Chicago in the West and Toronto in the East. (and Detroit in the middle, as long as the big 3 don't go bankrupt). If we could create a huge incentive zone to focus the economic spillover from those 2 cities into the rest of the lakes region we could finally have something positive.

[LaNdReW]

Originally posted by Stevenco
The Bush admin has been trying to rebulild the Gulf States for a few years now.

aarg, always have problems editing posts with attachments..
see next post

[LaNdReW]

Originally posted by Stevenco
The Bush admin has been trying to rebulild the Gulf States for a few years now.

This is a graphic of inflow vs. outflow of federal tax money by state. The blue states pay more in taxes than they receive in federal services. The red states receive more in federal services than they pay in taxes. (2003)

[WestSideJohn]

It's amazing how closely that red/blue map lines up with the red/blue voting maps.

[300miles]

New Mexico sure has it easy.

[LaNdReW]

Originally posted by WestSideJohn
It's amazing how closely that red/blue map lines up with the red/blue voting maps.

What a coincidence?;)


Check out this site.....(warning, strong blue state bias)

http://www.topalli.com/blue/

Think their data is more recent...Not sure though.
Check out Chlamydia and other comparisons.
Or teen pregnancy, man, those bible belters have that lockedup.
Lotsa funny comments there like:
"Tell your Red friends: if they hate government programs so much: send us our money back!"

Check out the purple states section.