JACKSON-Three months after Hurricane Katrina struck our Gulf Coast region with tremendous destructive force of wind and water on a scale this nation has never experienced, there were few answers to the question: "Where do we go from here?"
Optimism - and hope - were virtually the only answers our state and local governmental leaders had to offer, and then with a note of uncertainty because of the immensity of the task facing them.
Several things we do know with relative certainty in Mississippi at this juncture after Katrina hit:
One is that life will not return to anywhere near normalcy for almost a quarter of the state's people in the foreseeable future; another is that the state's thriving gaming industry on the Gulf Coast that pumped millions of dollars into the state's economy and was a major source of tax revenue for coast towns and counties as well as the state is out of commission at least for two years.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has proposed a $4.734 billion, no-tax-hike state budget for FY2007 with an ambitious slogan, "We will rebuild a Mississippi that exceeds anything we've ever known."
No knowledgeable state government observer, however, could find in his document enough substance or fiscal wherewithal to fulfill Barbour's rosy promise of not only restoring what has been smashed, but to make it better.
Any realist here knows that the rebuilding and revitalization of Mississippi's Katrina-smashed infrastructure, and societal institutions, is a task requiring resources far beyond our state and local governments' ability, even if we adjusted our tax structures (as we should) to generate badly needed additional revenue.
Thus, we in Mississippi, and of course our hard-hit Louisiana/New Orleans neighbors, must look to Washington for billions of dollars of disaster recovery and rebuilding aid. No optimistic prospect there, however.
Katrina's huge recovery price tag lands on the doorstep of the White House at a time when the Bush administration - and Congress - are already strapped with a monstrous federal budget deficit and waging an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq that is costing $2 billion a week, as well as the lives of hundreds of American military.
Meanwhile, the $63 billion Congress appropriated early on for Katrina recovery has been quickly spent, and thousands of Mississippians and Louisianans who lost homes, belongings, jobs or businesses in the storm now are existing in dire circumstances, desperately waiting for help from Washington.
It's a bitter irony that while Congress goes on Thanksgiving break and President Bush junkets to South America and even Mongolia before heading back to his Crawford, Texas, ranch, thousands of hurricane-battered Americans in the Gulf South of the richest nation in world history were left facing a grim holiday season.
Barbour was riding an approval high for his perceived able handling of the state response to Katrina. But now, as cold weather arrives and hundreds of his constituents shiver in FEMA-provided tents or thin trailers they now call "home," his popularity could sharply plummet if he fails to get Bush, his good buddy in the White House, to deliver on billions of dollars in federal aid.
Some here believe Republican Barbour had political motives in cutting to $33 billion the recovery money he will seek for his state in Washington, so as to look better than Louisiana's Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco who is asking $250 billion for her state. (Louisiana's Republican Sen. David Vitter, incidentally, agrees with Blanco.)
Mississippi's economists, meantime, are trying to assess the impact Katrina has had so far on state revenues and economic activity, and to look ahead at what effect expenditure of federal funds and insurance payments will have when rebuilding infrastructure and housing does get cranked up next year.
Senior Economist Marianne Hill of the state College Board's Research Center warns in a new issue of "Economic Review" that the expected massive inflow of recovery dollars could in the short run create something of a false economic boom that will not be sustainable.
As an example, she forecasts that within a few months, per capita incomes on the Coast will be higher than before the storm hit due to the inflow of capital. But losses from the hurricane, her study adds, will likely mean that the poverty rate on the coast will rise. The hurricane left many jobless, resulting in 51,000 new claims being filed for unemployment, as many as in the 12 prior months.
In December, a final report is expected from the governor's 42-member commission on recovery, rehabilitation and renewal. It conducted a five-day renewal forum in October that brought together over 100 professionals with expertise in environmental protection and a host of other areas, including social issues, to develop a "broad vision for a better Gulf Coast and South Mississippi."
What comes out of that report could be a radically different looking Gulf Coast. Camelot on the Coast? We'll see.
