George W Bush 2000

Columnist Michael Barone reviews President Bush's proposals to rebuild the Gulf region, applauding specific plans to expand opportunity and ownership:

"In Jackson Square, Mr. Bush found his voice for the first time since the levees broke. He described the people he had seen on the ground and the recovery work already done. He promised to rebuild the Gulf Coast and re-engineer New Orleans, and added -- wisely, in view of Louisiana's heritage of corruption -- that inspectors general would oversee the spending.

"But despite the Great Society tone of his speech, he did not promise another Great Society. He proposed instead a Gulf Opportunity Zone -- presumably, a tax-free status to encourage investment. He called for Worker Recovery Accounts of up to $5,000 for job training, education and childcare. He proposed an Urban Homesteading Act on federal lands.

"Mr. Bush's liberal critics have hoped the Katrina disaster would increase support for big government, and they have a point when they say there are some things only government must do and it -- or they: local, state, federal -- must do them well.

"Mr. Bush's proposals use government differently. Like the GI Bill of Rights and the no-down-payment Veterans Administration home mortgages of Franklin Roosevelt, Mr. Bush's Worker Recovery Accounts and Urban Homesteading would help people, but only those who in turn do something to lift themselves. And his Opportunity Zone turns on its head the liberal notion that the most effective way to help the poor and helpless is to tax everyone else heavily and hand out money to those in need.

"Lower taxes and less bureaucracy, Mr. Bush is saying, will enable people in the private sector to build the kind of self-propelling economy that offers everyone a chance out of poverty."