GOP Sees Post-Katrina ReBuilding as a Wave to Pave Their Agenda

Think more tax cuts for the rich. Think school vouchers. Think even less privacy.

From the Boston Globe:

Republican lawmakers in Congress have tried repeatedly in recent years to allow children to use federally funded vouchers to attend private schools. They have been defeated seven times since 1998.

At least nine times in the past decade, Republicans sought to repeal or undermine a Depression-era law that requires federal contractors to pay the ''prevailing wage" in the region they are working in. None of the efforts succeeded.

But now the GOP is poised to realize both of those goals. President Bush's reconstruction package for the Gulf Coast region devastated by Hurricane Katrina includes nearly $500 million for vouchers that children can use at private schools anywhere in the nation. And Bush declared a ''national emergency" to waive the prevailing wage law during the cleanup, freeing contractors to pay construction workers as little as the minimum wage, rather than the $8 to $10 prevailing wages in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi.

As the federal government's response to Katrina takes shape, the White House and Congress are enacting or seeking to pass a wide range of policies that have been consistently rejected by Congress, despite Republican majorities in the House and Senate. The Bush administration has lifted the requirement that contractors have affirmative-action plans, is seeking to weaken clean-air standards in the Gulf region, and has shelved rules governing the number of hours truckers can work. Republicans in Congress have proposed allowing the EPA to waive all environmental regulations during the rebuilding.

Republicans say the moves are intended to help the region rebuild as fast as possible. Moreover, with as much as $200 billion headed to the states hit by Katrina, the White House and Congress want to be sure that the money is spent in accordance with conservative principles, emphasizing the free market and the strength of the private sector, said Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the Senate's third-ranking Republican.

''The conditions that people were living in I would argue were a result of liberal policies," Santorum said. ''And now we've got some alternative ideas -- give us an opportunity to try to positively impact the lives of the poor in these communities. . . . Let's try something different that may work, because what has been tried in the past hasn't worked."

But Democrats contend that Republicans are using a national tragedy to slip in proposals they have not been able to achieve through the legislative process during normal times.