The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this Friday; then, a post-presidential speech discussion of what it will mean to restore real life to New Orleans and the Gulf coast; a report from Houston on the evacuees; and the analysis of David Brooks and Tom Oliphant.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Bush called today for cutting other spending to pay for the Gulf coast recovery. Last night, in New Orleans, Mr. Bush promised one of the largest rebuilding projects in history. Today, after meeting with the president of Russia, he was asked about the price tag. He said: "It's going to cost whatever it's going to cost."

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I am confident we can handle it and I am confident that we can handle our other priorities. It's going to mean that we're going to have to make sure cut unnecessary spending. It's going to mean we don't do -- we have got to maintain economic growth, and therefore, we should not raise taxes. Our working people have had to pay a tax, in essence, by higher gasoline prices. And we don't need to be taking more money out of their pocket.

JIM LEHRER: By some estimates, the cost could top $200 billion. Some Republicans warned today the offsetting spending cuts will have to be extensive, but Senate leaders of both parties visited New Orleans and promised bipartisan support. They said they'd make sure the money was well spent. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary.

This was a national day of prayer for victims of Hurricane Katrina. In Washington, the president and hundreds of others attended a service at the Washington National Cathedral. The crowd included evacuees and rescue workers from New Orleans. Bishop T.D. Jakes of Dallas said: "The hurricane showed Americans that they cannot overlook the poor and suffering."

BISHOP T.D. JAKES: Katrina, perhaps she has done something to this nation that we needed to have done. She has made us think and look and reach beyond the breach, and dare to discuss the unmentionable issues that confront us on a day-to-day basis, to deal with our differences and distinctives and perspectives and to talk about things that are not politically correct.

JIM LEHRER: Special services were planned tonight in Houston and San Antonio, Texas, for thousands of evacuees now living there. We'll have more on the evacuees later in the program.

In New Orleans today, businesses worked to get ready before parts of the city reopen on Monday. Business owners returned to the French Quarter to assess damage, and workers in protective suits cleared debris from the streets. Engineers reported New Orleans will be cleared of floodwater by Oct. 2, earlier than expected. Also today, the state health department reopened oyster beds southwest of the city. More than a third of the nation's oysters come from Louisiana.

Tropical Storm Ophelia headed north today toward New England and Canada. The storm dumped up to a foot and a half of rain along the North Carolina coast yesterday. The worst damage was just south of the outer banks. Forecasters said Ophelia would likely gain speed over the weekend and pass southeast of Nantucket Island in Massachusetts. It could also threaten Nova Scotia. Insurgent attacks in Iraq claimed at least 24 more lives today. In the north, a suicide car bomber killed 12 worshippers leaving Friday prayers at a mosque. Later, police in the same city arrested another man wearing a vest full of explosives. He was headed to another mosque. Since Wednesday, bombings have killed nearly 200 Iraqis and wounded more than 600, mostly in Baghdad.

In Afghanistan today, gunmen shot and killed another candidate in Sunday's elections. Taliban guerrillas also warned voters to boycott the polls. We have a report on the campaign in one afghan city from Alex Thomson of Independent Television News.

ALEX THOMSON: Four years on from the Taliban, Kabul at least, is really changing. Men ogle the Hollywood poster women at reopened cinemas. Travel agents have mushroomed here, catering for wealthy Afghans and foreigners. But the shadow of old Afghanistan suddenly hangs here; many are leaving, fearing trouble as the poll approaches. That may prove an overreaction because people here have embraced the election, plastering every public wall, space, lamp post, you name it, with the candidates standing for parliament. You vote here for individuals, not parties. Individuals like Sabrina Sadheb, at 26, the youngest candidate in the capitol.

SABRINA SADHEB: Everything is changing. This technology is going on and time is going on. The new world needs new voice. And I think if you want to have a new policy, you should have new generation or young people because maybe the older didn't want this new policy, they want, like before.

ALEX THOMSON: And yet for every Sabrina, there are hundreds, thousands of women in burqas. Men and women will vote separately in the coming election because of Islamic sensitivities, and yet a quarter of all parliamentary seats are women-only. But simply getting ballot boxes to the 6,300 polling stations across terrain like this is an enormous feat. In some areas helicopters and four by four's can't cut it so scores of camels have been enlisted, and so goes this election for which there is genuine enthusiasm, but what then in a country crippled by poverty and by wars? Well, it is argued Sunday's ballot is at least a start.

JIM LEHRER: Seven candidates have been killed in the run-up to the election. Today, a top U.S. commander said the militants are not capable of a broad, coordinated attack, but Army Brig. Gen. James Champion said they'll still try to get attention.

BRIG. GEN. JAMES G. CHAMPION: I think they would be looking for that one event, possibly, to get into an area that would create and cause damage, cause possibly loss of life to where they could get it reported. But I don't, I don't see any kind of situation happening like you're seeing in Iraq.

JIM LEHRER: More than 12.5 million Afghans are eligible to vote on Sunday. Some 5,800 candidates are running for 249 seats in parliament and provincial councils. Germany also holds national elections on Sunday amid high unemployment and sluggish growth. Last-minute polls showed Angela Merkel's center-right alliance with a slight edge over Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his socialist coalition. He's been in power seven years. Merkel favors less regulation of business. She might also adopt a more pro- American foreign policy.

U.S. Airways won approval to emerge from federal bankruptcy protection today. The ruling by a bankruptcy court also cleared the way for the airline to merge with America West. Earlier this week, Delta and Northwest Airlines filed for bankruptcy protection.

The price of crude oil fell sharply today as traders projected lower demand in the aftermath of Katrina. In New York, oil futures slipped $1.75 to close at $63 a barrel, the lowest in five weeks. On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 83 points to close at nearly 10,642. The NASDAQ rose 14 points to close at 2,160. For the week, the Dow lost 3/10 of a percent; the NASDAQ fell 7/10. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: A hurricane restoration conversation; the evacuees; and Brooks and Oliphant.

FOCUS - RX FOR RECOVERY

JIM LEHRER: The president's plans for rebuilding the Gulf region. Kwame Holman begins.

KWAME HOLMAN: Parts of New Orleans were drier today as water continued to be forced out of the city and some activity returned to the downtown area. But aerial views revealed the scope of the devastation that remains from residential neighborhoods still underwater to a foul sludge that flowed into Lake Pontchartrain. A bipartisan delegation of 14 senators including the top party leaders visited the crescent city today and pledged to work together to rebuild it and the surrounding region.

SEN. HARRY REID: There's been no name calling, no finger pointing, and I think that's a lesson we can learn as we take back to Washington. We've got to become a partner with the people of the Gulf coast and see what we can do more quickly to get them to help that they need.

SEN. BILL FRIST: We, again together, will be making sure further resources are made available to rebuild, to reverse the best way we possibly can, the devastation that has happened along the entire coast here in New Orleans. We'll do it in a responsible way. We'll do it in a fiscally responsible way.

KWAME HOLMAN: The spirit of bipartisanship came on the heels of President Bush's speech to the nation last night, which he delivered from a flood-lit Jackson Square in the otherwise darkened the French Quarter.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do whatever it takes. We will stay as long as it takes to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the crescent city need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans. And this great city will rise again.

KWAME HOLMAN: And he outlined a plan for moving forward.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I propose the creation of a Gulf opportunity zone encompassing the region of the disaster in Louisiana, in Mississippi and Alabama. Within this zone, we should provide immediate incentives for job-creating investment; tax relief for small businesses; incentives to companies that create jobs, and loans and loan guarantees for small businesses including minority-owned enterprises to get them up and running again.

KWAME HOLMAN: Mr. Bush also addressed the issues of race and poverty that were prominent in Katrina's wake.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: As all of us saw on television, there's also some deep persistent poverty in this region as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality. Americans want the Gulf coast not just to survive, but to thrive -- not just to cope, but to overcome. We want evacuees to come home for the best of reasons -- because they have a real chance at a better life in a place they love.

KWAME HOLMAN: Some of those evacuees reacted to the president's speech from a bar in New Orleans.

HOPE KITISIN: My feeling is that it was a very good speech. It was very positive. Let's see if he will actually follow through and let's see if he can coordinate the federal and local governments to do something about it and to actually fulfill promises to us.

KWAME HOLMAN: A shelter in Baton Rouge.

ELDON O'NEILL: I was quite impressed with it. All I can say is I hope he lives up to the words that he said because he offered to help everybody that was in this disaster.

MELVIN HENDERSON: Well, he said it all. But there ain't nothing being done. He said a lot. He said all we wanted to hear. You know, at least some of the things, most of the things we wanted to hear. Is it materializing? Is any red tape being cut through?

KWAME HOLMAN: And outside Houston's Astrodome.

WOMAN: To me, it is a little too late. It is too late. He should have did something more about it.

KWAME HOLMAN: As clean up and reconstruction go forward, the White House today said the cost estimated at some $200 billion would be borne by the nation's taxpayers.

JIM LEHRER: And to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: Now, five views on the president's plan and what needs to be done. Bruce Katz was chief of staff for the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration. He is now the director of metropolitan policy at the Brookings Institution. Alison Fraser is director of economic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation. She is the former deputy director of Oklahoma's Office of State Finance. William Julius Wilson is the director of the joblessness and urban poverty research program and a professor of social policy at Harvard University. Mark Schleifstein is a Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. And Ronnie Seaton is a chef and teacher who evacuated New Orleans a day before Katrina hit and is now in Baton Rouge. He was a chef in the White House and helped create a culinary arts school in New Orleans. Professor Wilson, let's start with you. What did you hear in the president's speech last night that gives you the outlines of a plan, and what do you think of the plan?

WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON: Well, first of all, let me say that I was pleased he acknowledged his responsibility for the way that things were handled in the aftermath of the hurricane disaster: And also, I think, that this is the first time that Bush spoke about the, clearly, about the problems of racial inequality and persistent poverty and that these problems are related to a history of racial discrimination in these kind of states.

Problems of persistent poverty cannot be addressed if they are not acknowledged. And it is important for the President of the United States to acknowledge these problems and to keep the nation focused on the need to address these problems. It will be -- Katrina exposed the problems of inequality and persistent poverty-- and it will be, really, will be important for the president to continue to talk about these, about these problems.

Now, a criticism that I have is that the president's speech seemed to suggest that persistent poverty is regional when we know that it is a national problem that has plagued many families in our central cities. Another concern that I had with the speech is that his proposal does not, in my judgment, really seriously address the problems of joblessness for low income people. Now, he did emphasize job training. You know, job training will not create jobs. He did talk about tax relief for small businesses and incentives for companies that create jobs.

But I'm concerned about people who have difficulty finding jobs in the private sector, and I would encourage, if I were writing -- if I had written the speech, I would have included a few lines about the need to create public sector jobs for low income people, a job that would help in the rebuilding of the infrastructure in New Orleans.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor, let me move on to Alison Fraser. What do you make of what you heard about last night?

ALISON FRASER: Well, it was really a very broad plan. There were some things I liked and some things I was concerned about. I was really very happy to see him call for a Gulf opportunity zone. That's an opportunity for the federal and the state and local governments to come together and enact policies that are going to bring private investment to the area to help businesses, families and individuals rebuild their lives in the community to create jobs, and to do that quickly without government burdens and interference.

We can, perhaps, encourage our leaders at the state, local and federal level to think about waiving some of the burdensome regulations that will get in the way of rebuilding lives, families, infrastructure, homes and so forth. I was very pleased to see that.

I was also happy to see him call for getting benefits directly into the hands of the hurricane victims. That can mean they can get money more quickly and use it as they really need, as they best see fit, whether it is for child care, whether it is for job training, whether it is for housing. And that money can move with them, if they relocate to another area, if they move back to their communities, which everyone really hopes that they will do.

And I would encourage the Congress and the administration to look more broadly at using these really flexible and direct benefits, getting them directly into the hands of these folks more broadly for more housing, for education, for training and a number of things. I was pleased to see that.

I was pleased to see him call for private investment in a private role, especially in the infrastructure rebuilding. And lastly, I was very pleased to see him calling for strengthening the national response in this kind of catastrophic tragedy that we have had. I think those were very important.

On the other hand, I was very concerned because this is a huge federal commitment and a federal undertaking. And when he said, we will do whatever it takes, my concern there is that that does not translate on the part of the Congress to opening in a very unlimited way the federal piggybank. We simply cannot afford to do everything that comes into anybody's whim and fancy.

We need to have very targeted relief directly going to the citizens and the businesses that were impacted. But as we have seen so many times in the past, we can't have any mission creep when it comes to paying for this huge undertaking.

And lastly, the things that concern me is I heard about no plan to pay for this huge undertaking. What is Congress going do to pay for it? And we would call for them as a first step to look for redirecting some of the lower-priority federal funds that they have already spent.

For example, in this very, very huge and wasteful highway bill, we would call on members of Congress to make the same sacrifices that their constituents have when they have been digging into their pockets contributing to the Red Cross and other wonderful charities by giving up their earmark projects for bridges, roads and so forth, many of them -- of parking structures, bike trails. I could go on and on and on. Many of them are not necessary. Some are necessary.

But we have established a huge national priority. And that's the rebuilding of the Gulf state. Let's start by redirecting those funds to rebuilding infrastructure in those states.

RAY SUAREZ: Ronnie Seaton you are one of the many who are not at home right now because of Hurricane Katrina. You must have watched the speech with special interest. What did you make of it?

RONNIE SEATON: I was very impressed. The president did give some direction where our country needs to go, but right now we are not feeling the effect down here. The money is not coming. It is very slow. Right now I am not sure if I want to go back to New Orleans right now. I think I might need to relocate to another city. But the programs we need, we need programs for job training for the young people. We need money to start new businesses. And we just need the support of everyone and we need the people within the city to work along with the government.

RAY SUAREZ: There's going to be a lot of work getting done in New Orleans. If you wanted to go back, and as a chef, feed the people who are doing that work, what kind of support would you need from a program like the one unveiled last night to get going from scratch?

RONNIE SEATON: Well, we would need a training program to train young people that's coming out of high school that might not have a direction that can go into a culinary field and use those same people to help feed the people that's working down there, that's trying to build because this is going to be a long-range project.

And then those young people become taxpayers. And then they become, building up a support base and become the future of our new, New Orleans.

RAY SUAREZ: Bruce Katz, what did you make of the speech?

BRUCE KATZ: Well, like Professor Wilson, I was very pleased that the president focused on the deep racial and class divide in New Orleans. But to be frank, I was very surprised by the redevelopment initiatives that he put on the table which I felt fell far short of what's going to be needed to build a competitive healthy and viable city to break up the concentrations of poverty, to break up those federal enclaves of poverty which existed in the city and to really give these low income residents more choice and opportunity.

I think the urban homesteading initiative that he put on the table handing over land, essentially -

RAY SUAREZ: Gives people promise to build on it.

BRUCE KATZ: Exactly - is a fairly marginal response to what is a scale of devastation that we have not seen in this country for some period of time. Where is the land? How are people earning less than $10,000 going to support the building of a home, the payment of a mortgage, the maintenance of the home? Is this going to lock in some of the same patterns of poverty that we have seen before?

The fact is that we know how to create economically integrated communities in this country. And I was surprised that the president did not call on what is really the most sophisticated housing finance and development system in the world to come to the table and to contribute the tax credits with other incentives to build a completely different New Orleans.

RAY SUAREZ: So the same set of proposals that Alison Fraser was a little bothered by because they promised as much as it takes for as long as it takes, you say don't go far enough?

BRUCE KATZ: I don't think they go far enough. The question is not whether we rebuild New Orleans, but how do we do it. And I agree with her, that we have to do it in a fiscally responsible way. But we know how to do this. And I don't think what we have done yet has really tapped the depth of expertise in this country, particularly with regard to the rebuilding effort.

RAY SUAREZ: Mark Schleifstein, you have written for a long time about the environment of that area, the Mississippi Delta. The president did take some time to talk about how it is difficult but feasible to rebuild New Orleans in particular. What did you make of his words?

MARK SCHLEIFSTEIN: Well, there were a couple of things missing. The two key ones were that he did not mention whether or not he plans to support the construction of a Category Five hurricane protection system, which would be a very expensive proposition. And the other key thing that he didn't talk about was the coastal restoration program, another thing that state leaders and environmental groups and also scientists say will help keep down the storm surge of future storms. Both of those are very, very expensive propositions that haven't been addressed at all.

Hopefully, as a homeowner, you know, my house had eight to ten feet of water in it, the thing that I want to know is whether or not what he is planning on doing will allow me to rebuild somewhere in the city in a way that at least protects me from a Category Three hurricane in the future, or from just from basic rainstorms, which means raising my house up above the flood plain. I am at eight feet below zero. He sort of hinted that that needed to be done and he said it in terms of building codes and zoning ordinances. But there needs to be more than that. It will cost a heck of a lot of money to fill the city if they actually went that direction -- to put dirt on the bottom to raise things up and it would cost individual homeowners a fortune to build their houses, their new houses on stilts. And I don't know if either the FEMA flood insurance program or private insurance is going to help underwrite that cost.

RAY SUAREZ: Is there any, Professor Wilson, way to make a programmatic response - can the president unveil a plan that really addresses what you wanted to hear, that is that attention to race and class but in actual plans, in bricks and mortars, and rebuilding?

WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON: Well, you know, there are only so many things that he can talk about in the 30-minute speech. But one thing he could have emphasized is that requiring companies that have received contracts to rebuild New Orleans, requiring them to hire a local people in jobs that match their skills and training. That's a very, very concrete proposal that he could introduce.

Another thing, it would have been good if he had talked about the need to ensure that the placement of families in New Orleans does not reproduce the levels of concentrated poverty that existed before. So I would just like to underline what Bruce Katz was saying and that is that we do have evidence that there is moving families to lower poverty neighborhoods and school districts can have significant positive effects.

RAY SUAREZ: Alison Fraser, should that be part of the interest of any master plan, to break up those high concentrations of poverty, or should there be more of an organic response -- put the forces in motion to rebuild and see who comes back?

ALISON FRASER: I would really argue for the more organic forces. You know, Bruce said very well that the New Orleans that we're going to see in five months and five years is not going to be anything like the New Orleans that we saw five weeks ago. And what I think is so attractive about these, the, you know, the opportunity zone that the president has called for, is I think there is great opportunity for the public and private sectors to come together to look to new and innovative ways to rebuild the cities, not only New Orleans but all of the Gulf coast communities that were so devastated by this hurricane.

That being said, you know, I think that we need to look towards creative ways to addressing some of these very issues, and it was really a tragic event that the hurricane picked, you know, the city of New Orleans to really, you know, focus some of these issues on the attention of the American people.

But, again, I think it is very important that we not have a top-down government-led response to who builds what kind of housing, where it's built, who hires whom. I really think it is important for the communities, for businesses, for individuals, for entrepreneurs to come together to form this unique response that we're going to see as the area rebuilds.

RAY SUAREZ: Ronnie Seaton, last night, the president said there's no way to imagine America without New Orleans. Tell us why he would say that and why people in Minnesota or Oregon or California should be concerned and want New Orleans to be rebuilt.

RONNIE SEATON: Well, you know, New Orleans is a city of old history, old culture; we are known for our music. We are known for our food. It is a tourist location. And it is a part of history that you just can't write off. And I'm sure that's what the president was trying to give out is that, you know, there's hope for New Orleans. We need to keep New Orleans going: Mardi Gras, Super Bowls, Jazz Fest. You know, it's just a lot of history that you can't just wash away with water. So I think the president wants to bring it back, let everybody know that New Orleans will be built again, strong, or even better as he said.

RAY SUAREZ: So do we have some choices to make? Might there be a smaller, more middle class city that rises from the ashes of this old one?

BRUCE KATZ: I think the city will be smaller and I'm not sure if that's the worst thing in the world. I think we have an opportunity here to have a win-win. I think we have an opportunity to build a very different kind of city, a city with a much greater mix of incomes. And, at the same time, we have the opportunity, if we have the right principles and we have the right tools to give many of those low income families the ability to live in neighborhoods, whether in the city, whether in the suburbs, whether in other parts of the state or in other parts of the country, live in neighborhoods where they have access to good schools, safe streets and quality jobs. That did not exist in New Orleans before this hurricane. And to some extent it didn't exist because the federal government had created enclaves of poverty with public housing and subsidized economy and so forth.

I think what I didn't hear last night was the set of principles of a commitment of a different kind of city, and the tools were interesting. They were not as substantial as I thought they should be. But it is what kind of vision does the federal government have? We know what works in cities and we know what works in metropolitan areas, and we should not try to repeat the mistakes of the past.

RAY SUAREZ: Mark Schleifstein, however the planning comes out at the end, did the president's speech last night, the presence of 14 members of the U.S. Senate in the city, in your city today, show you that there is wind in the sails, and one way or another, this is going to happen?

MARK SCHLEIFSTEIN: Well, it showed me that there's good intent. The proof is in the pudding. We are going to have to see what Congress does with all of this before we're really convinced. It is such a huge undertaking. And the reality is that if, you know, there are so many different facets to this -- If we don't get Ronnie back into the city, if we don't get the minority middle class back into the city, then New Orleans is not New Orleans. If we don't get the housing back, there will be no place for people to live. Ifwe don't get the tourist industry back, New Orleans doesn't exist.

RONNIE SEATON: That's right.

MARK SCHLEIFSTEIN: And if we don't get the port facilities and oil and gas production going again on the gulf coast, the economy and the nation will really suffer. And all of that is what New Orleans is really about.

RAY SUAREZ: Mark Schleifstein and all my other guests, thank you very much.

FOCUS - FACING THE FUTURE

JIM LEHRER: Now, as a coda to that discussion, a look at life after Katrina for the people who fled to Houston. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Television has our story.

LEE HOCHBERG: After a hurricane and a flood evacuation and a not yet finished odyssey in an emergency shelter, 350 miles from home, these Louisianans seem glad to be just working.

SPOKESMAN: Sign here.

JAMES MAY, JR.: Here?

SPOKESMAN: Yes.

LEE HOCHBERG: A crisis for many of the up to 250,000 evacuees in Houston is coming to an end. Some are trying now to figure out what comes next. James May and a dozen others have taken temporary jobs helping prepare new apartments for 120 other New Orleans evacuees. May says for him New Orleans is in the past.

JAMES MAY, JR.: I am through. I am through. They was poorly prepared for the flood. And I know it's going to be another one and it will be poorly prepared. And I got out with my life this time; I ain't going to play with my life no more, my family, my children, I ain't going to play with their lives. I'm going to leave "em somewhere where they're safe.

LEE HOCHBERG: Houston?

JAMES MAY, JR.: Houston.

LEE HOCHBERG: May says he was making more money doing construction in New Orleans. But it's not about money anymore.

JAMES MAY, JR.: The water's toxic and the water in the lake is -- how could you separate the water? How could you separate the water? You will take the water out of the toxic city with the oil and the gas and put it back in the lakes so you can eat the fish and all. Somebody is going to get sick and die. I don't want to be rich and dead. I want to be well off and alive.

SPOKESPERSON: There's some employees to interview.

LEE HOCHBERG: At job fairs around the shelters, thousands are exploring options in Houston. Dennis Blossom wants to work in sports or public relations.

DENNIS BLOSSOM: I love this city. I mean, this is a good time; everybody who I have encountered from the city that has been showing love - they've been embracing us with open arms. You see I got my Astros hat on. I'm ready. I mean, I just want to be a productive citizen of this city.

LEE HOCHBERG: But even as Houston earned plaudits from nearly everybody for its warm welcome of so many in crisis there are questions whether this metropolis of 3 million people will effectively be able to absorb another city into its midst. Regional employment analysts say it could take more than a year to place an additional workforce of 50,000.

There are opportunities for teachers. The Houston school district created hundreds of jobs to handle new students from Louisiana. Rosalyn Singleton hopes to get one of them.

ROSALYNN SINGLETON: I have made changes before, but not this type of change. Not a change where I had to leave in a hurry -- in a hurry.

LEE HOCHBERG: So what you hope for here is -

ROSALYNN SINGLETON: A job. In administration or teaching. I'm not going to be choosey about it.

SPOKESMAN: Do you have work shoes?

LEE HOCHBERG: Houston has a shortage of nurses. But Shaunca Richardson who studied nursing before losing everything in New Orleans applied, instead, for an immediate opening, moving furniture.

SHAUNCA RICHARDSON: I have two children so it's pretty much anything right now. I need money. I need to get a house, clothes, shoes, everything.

SPOKESPERSON: We have various employers coming in at different times. We have also got one, the ding doctor. They work on repairing windshields; they are hiring sales associates now.

LEE HOCHBERG: Jobs like that are not what Sharry Sandler had in mind. But she's having to expand her options. Sandler was a licensed attorney in Louisiana and escaped to Houston with a friend. She found she will have to pass the Texas bar to be employable here and that could take six months. The state offered displaced lawyers the right to practice for 30 days. But Sandler is not comforted.

SHARRY SANDLER: I don't know if I can make my life here. I cry every day. There hasn't been a day that goes by since we got here that I don't cry. I cry every day. I worked for 10 years to get what I have. And now it's gone. I don't know what to do. I don't know what is the next step. (music)

LEE HOCHBERG: Some Houston opinion leaders also are unsure how to assimilate New Orleans population.

SPOKESMAN: We have fellowshipped one with another.

LEE HOCHBERG: Pastor Ed Young leads Houston's 31,000-member Second Baptist Church. The church organized some 40,000 yellow-shirted volunteers to work Houston's shelters, feeding and aiding the evacuees. But Young says a disproportionate number of those evacuees are poor and infirm and perhaps too much for Houston to take on permanently.

PASTOR ED YOUNG: We want to do all that we can. But we are overwhelmed. All of our services are overwhelmed. So the idea that we take in another 160,000 individuals, the idea that thirty or forty thousand of those who are unemployable in New Orleans will come to Houston -- this is frightening to the city; it is frightening to me. If we create another projects like they had in New Orleans, we have another, sort of, third world developing country among us that's a welfare state. I think that would be a great tragedy.

LEE HOCHBERG: Some Houstonians say there won't be enough jobs.

DENISHA DENMON: This is our hometown and we're getting' pushed back. And I don't feel like that's right because there are a lot of people in Houston trying to get somewhere in life and as soon as a tragedy comes, it's like we're pushed to the side.

LEE HOCHBERG: Texas political leaders maintain there's enough bounty in Texas for everybody. Houston Mayor Bill White:

MAYOR BILL WHITE: What we need to do...is provide relief now so that we get the survivors back on their feet as soon as possible.

LEE HOCHBERG: Many evacuees believe they have no choice but to stay.

DENNIS BLOSSOM: If I was to go back, it wouldn't really be the same. It just really wouldn't. I mean, it is sad, it's depressing to see my city, my neighborhood underwater. But it wouldn't really be the same. It just wouldn't.

LEE HOCHBERG: As she figures out what her future holds, Sharry Sandler is volunteering at Legal Aid using her knowledge of Louisiana law to help evacuees. She says she might work some tables for some income. The moving job for these young men ends soon. They will be looking for other Houston jobs to take them to the next stage of their very changed lives.

JIM LEHRER: For the record, a new poll out today that found that many evacuees do plan to stay in Houston. It said fewer than half of former New Orleans residents now living in Houston shelters plan to return to New Orleans. Two-thirds of those who want to relocate said they intend to settle in Houston. The poll was conducted by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health.

FOCUS - BROOKS & OLIPHANT

JIM LEHRER: And some closing words tonight from Brooks and Oliphant New York Times columnist David Brooks and Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant. Mark Shields is off tonight.

David, what do you make of the reaction to the president's speeches and plans, not only from officialdom from our program tonight and elsewhere?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, on the program tonight two people right here in the studio, a woman named Alison Fraser from the Heritage Foundation, who really was offering a sort of a traditional small government conservative vision of what should happen -- there should be tax relief, enterprise zones but not too much big government, $100 billion pouring in there. She was concerned about the spending. Sitting next to her was a guy named Bruce Katz from the Brookings Institution, a more liberal, or more democratic institution, and he was saying not enough, not enough spending, not enough emphasis on actually rebuilding communities.

And Bush, strangely enough finds himself in the middle of these two policies. He really from the beginning of presidency rejected the small government conservative policy partly because it is not politically doable in this country. People want the government to do stuff, and partly because he thinks the government should be active but not as active as Bruce Katz probably wants him to be.

So when you look at his speech and his programs, it is consistent with the policy he's tried to develop but has not quite gotten there, which is to spend a lot of money and to try to give individual initiative to actual people, not to government agencies, and if you look at the spending programs, that's what it is all about -- skipping the government agencies and then giving it right to individuals. And I spoke to a senior White House official today and he was trying to say we're just trying to work this through. There's tons of more stuff we haven't figured out. But the one good thing about this approach he said was that these governments tend to be corrupt. And if we just try to send money through governments down --

JIM LEHRER: Are you talking about local and state governments?

DAVID BROOKS: Right - it will never get there. And so they think this time you have to go straight to the people with these vouchers, with these training programs, with these Homestead Acts. If you go through normal government channels, it will never get to the people.

JIM LEHRER: And, of course, that is not consistent with the conservative view that she was saying; she was saying, hey, no big thing from the top. Go to the bottom.

DAVID BROOKS: And if you talk to a lot of conservatives on Capitol Hill and just around Washington anyway, they are upset. They think $100 billion, $200 billion. We have got no money. Where is this money coming from? To a lot of people this is big government - let go of big government conservatism -- and there's some truth in that.

JIM LEHRER: Where do you see the truths tonight?

TOM OLIPHANT: Well, Mr. Seaton, of course, is the first thing that I heard in the discussion -- particularly, his reminder to those of us who are not there - that from his perspective virtually nothing is happening, which is a hard point to get through.

JIM LEHRER: It's stunning to hear that right now, isn't it, after all of these --

TOM OLIPHANT: That's right. I ran into one today I have been following for a couple of weeks now -- a working class suburb just to the northeast of New Orleans called Slidell.

JIM LEHRER: Right.

TOM OLIPHANT: And the mayor there needs trailers to house the first responders who have come to Slidell to help deal with a situation so horrible in terms of residential destruction it's hard to describe. And he is still waiting. So this notion from the ground, that hardly anything is happening, FEMA today, only today, opened its office in Biloxi, Mississippi.

DAVID BROOKS: Just on the background of that, I was told by a government official today about an argument they're having about where to put the trailers.

JIM LEHRER: Oh, please.

DAVID BROOKS: It is a real argument. The government of Louisiana wants to put them on Army or military bases, some of which are decommissioned. The problem the White House people see is those bases are -- there's plenty of land there but there are no jobs there. And if you stick people way out there, they just can't --

JIM LEHRER: It's just like a camp. It's a camp and not a life.

DAVID BROOKS: Right.

TOM OLIPHANT: I understand the argument but we are still left with that bottom line of nothing. Now, here is what I heard in that discussion. And it happens to be what I have been hearing all day as I have worked the telephone. And it is that none of this is partisan or ideological to speak of. I didn't hear anybody embracing the president's speech. I didn't hear anybody condemning it. But what I heard 24 hours later was some very thoughtful analysis that pointed up the holes in this program such as it is. And I thought they were summed up by the best source of all, President Bush himself off the cuff this afternoon. And here is how he described what he did last night.

I started laying out an outline. I don't think he did very much more than that. And everything else, it is still a passive response. And the danger -

JIM LEHRER: Passive response?

TOM OLIPHANT: Yes. In terms of there are -- I have encountered at least a dozen fully developed plans for the reconstruction of the Gulf coast and for some national responses to related problems.

JIM LEHRER: But it was thrown out here tonight here and there.

TOM OLIPHANT: Yes. And behind those outlines are some very detailed well thought thought-out ideas. The longer the president waits, the longer this will become a battle of competing wish lists. And that would be the worst way to proceed.

DAVID BROOKS: I don't quite agree with that. First of all, I agree totally that it's a start and everyone I talked to, even people close to the president said it's a start and we talked about things they have not even thought about -- or they thought about them but they haven't concluded about them -- family reunification, the offsets, which is the stuff to cut -- whether New Orleans should try to be a San Francisco-like creative city, a cultural city with a small growth area more like Portland or should it be a big booming city like Houston with big expansion and a lot of growth? So there's a lot of stuff out there and they are just walking along slowly.

But I do think two things need to be said. The first is the president didn't lay out a full program; he didn't lay out the costs. And that's unusual in politics. He said this is going to be a lot, a lot of money -- $100 billion, $200 billion. He laid out the cost, which is implies a lot more to come.

And, secondly, I don't think it is a mistake to be hesitant. Obviously there's immediate need that has to get there. I don't think it's a mistake to take our time and think even fundamentally if we really want to rebuild this city. I think all those issues have to be on the table, and if we take a couple of weeks to figure out how to rebuild the whole area, that doesn't seem to me a tragedy.

TOM OLIPHANT: Perhaps. Perhaps. But in the absence, particularly of a financing plan, the danger is that ideas are going to be stacked on top of ideas without the kind of conceptual framework that not only conveys a sense of purpose, but that also enforces a set of limits.

So that this horrible situation we find ourselves in, where the government is essentially broke with figures, a lot of people on Wall Street don't believe anyway, the need to put this in a box is enormous.

JIM LEHRER: In other words, say we're going to spend a certain number of billion dollars, and that's it, and now let's figure out how to spend it?

TOM OLIPHANT: And also, here is how we're going to do it.

JIM LEHRER: Okay.

TOM OLIPHANT: And I was struck today, one idea that surfaced, everybody is talking ideas. That's good. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House was only talking of one suggestion that happens to be what Bush's dad did with the savings and loan bailout and that's pick a number and sell long-term bonds. Well, if you can do it for the S&L's, why can't you do it for a program like this one, and nobody paid any attention.

JIM LEHRER: Let me ask you the question -- the three of us were sitting here last night when the president made this speech and one of the questions beyond the specifics, beyond the plan, beyond the cost, is did he make it -- did he take charge of it, 24 hours later is there now there a Bush idea, a Bush plan to do whatever needs to be done on the Gulf coast?

DAVID BROOKS: I think he did turn a corner. From everything I have heard it was a very well-received speech. People in the region, people around town, Republican and Democrat, seemed to say it was a good speech, even the editorial page praised him, which is not often for my paper's editorial page, so I do think it took us out of the hapless, I don't get it, problem which he had for a week or two, in to which I get it, we're working on ideas, we're taking charge; we've committed a lot of money to this; we're going to solve it. That doesn't mean, as Tom and I were saying, he knows exactly what he's going to do, but that's fair. I think he turned the corner with the speech.

JIM LEHRER: He is in charge?

TOM OLIPHANT: I absolutely agree on turning the corner. I'm not clear - there's an idea being discussed in the White House this weekend that might make me a little bit more positive and that is to pick somebody to be in charge of this. It is so big that somebody needs to be in charge of it. And there are some ideas, even a couple of -

JIM LEHRER: Is that under serious consideration?

TOM OLIPHANT: As I understand it. David may know better than I.

JIM LEHRER: David, would you mind - (Laughter)

DAVID BROOKS: It is not that easy to get these people on the phone.

JIM LEHRER: But you think it requires that?

TOM OLIPHANT: It is so big.

JIM LEHRER: It is not enough to say we will do it and cabinet officers are going to do --

TOM OLIPHANT: Tommy Franks, the guy who retired from General Electric, Jack Welch, maybe Lee Iacocca is too old, but it is too big for somebody not to be in charge of it. And right now if you ask the question of who is in charge of rebuilding the Gulf coast, you can't get an answer to that question.

JIM LEHRER: We also spent some time together this week with the John Roberts hearings. What are your thoughts about that? There is going to be a vote next Thursday. Was that -- was the exercise of the hearings good for our democratic society?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, my thoughts were quite along that line. You look back on the whole week. If you were a Martian that came to Earth, you would think the United States had a functioning democracy. You don't often get that impression. We had a guy come up, a nominee. He was a fantastic witness. He spoke clearly. He explained things as I think as clearly as he could have. Then we had the committee and the risk of these things turning into a fiasco is more likely to be on the Senate side than on the nominee side. And as I look at the members of the committee I see a lot of them who performed very well. Chuck Schumer from New York, who can be quite partisan, I thought the week was serious; Russ Feingold who can, you know, who pressed the case, the critical case quite seriously; Sam Brownback from Kansas made the pro-life case quite seriously. I thought we had a number of senators -- Arlen Specter, above all, the chairman, who ran a very fair hearing. A number of people stepped up and it was quite a good exercise all in all.

JIM LEHRER: Good exercise?

TOM OLIPHANT: Absolutely. And let me add one more name in the interest of bipartisanship. Orrin Hatch who twice in the 1990s voted for President Clinton's nominees, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Steve Breyer saying as he did last week that he knew he would disagree with virtually all of their decisions but believed that their temperament, their qualifications and their characters made them suitable for the Supreme Court. And that's the pitch that has so many Democrats really wrestling with this one over the weekend. And I think a number of are going to vote for him.

JIM LEHRER: Speaking of wrestling. Do you all find it -- is this not an extraordinary time? We not only have the selection of a person who could, for 40 years, hold one of the top positions, some people, they say could even affect our way of life, the chief justice and we have this extraordinary devastation and rebuilding now in the Gulf, and we also have a war going on in Iraq -- 200 Iraqis have died this week; 600 have been wounded.

DAVID BROOKS: And the president met with Vladimir Putin, who is in town. You think of American Soviet summits, the way they used to be so big.

JIM LEHRER: He kind of slipped in and out.

TOM OLIPHANT: The Iraqi leadership came here.

JIM LEHRER: That's right. Well, we had eight minutes with the president of Iraq last night - Ray Suarez. Under normal circumstances that would have been a huge, huge event -

TOM OLIPHANT: At a very critical moment, too. It's amazing to me how stuck we are. There are no alternatives being offered. The violence is escalating. We're supposed to, I guess, wait around for the October referendum that any ideas are being brushed aside and we are stuck.

DAVID BROOKS: There are ideas out there.

TOM OLIPHANT: There are.

DAVID BROOKS: There are ideas to establish safe havens so you can drive to the airport without getting killed and then sort of expand those out. But so far, there's no strategic movement or tactical movement.

JIM LEHRER: Meanwhile, meanwhile, meanwhile, something else happens. Thank you both very much. It's been an interesting week.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: And, again, the major developments of this day: President Bush called for cutting other spending to pay for Gulf coast reconstruction. The country observed a national day of prayer for victims of Hurricane Katrina, and insurgent attacks in Iraq claimed at least 24 more lives. Nearly 200 Iraqis were killed this week; more than 600 were wounded, as we just discussed. Washington Week can be seen on most PBS stations later this evening. We'll see you online and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.