He spoke this morning in the Tent about Katrina recovery and his project, which actually takes up something we talked about over at the Crack Den in the immediate hurricane aftermath, theNew Deal analogy.
A Gulf Coast Authority, similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority will oversee the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project to ensure transparency. This inter-state agency will give final approval to local project proposals in a timely fashion. The Gulf Coast Authority will also be charged with working with the local communities, the city, and the state to expedite matters and to create a smooth process between agencies to ensure that what the local communities want comes to fruition quickly.
Myers-Lipton said the bill currently has 16 cosponsors, and the official word from Pelosi’s office was that it would need 75 to 100 before she gave a shit.
“When Speaker Pelosi wants something done, she gets it done,” he said. “Leadership has to start with Speaker Pelosi.”
He organized an effort with three college students where they called Pelosi’s office, all day, until the staff started hanging up on them, to even get that far.
“There’s gonna have to be a movement,” he said. “And it has to be nationwide. We have weak levees in Sacramento. If those levees fail, Sacramento is under water. It has to be all of us.”
He said he’d talked to people in Mississippi, and they were angry at government every step of the way up the ladder. His students have a chant, that they have to keep updating. First it was “Two Years, Too Late.” And now it’s three.
“The WPA and the PWA put people who needed work to work building their own communities,” he said. “We need that all over the country.”
A.