fluctuations in equity markets are fairly common. they affect wealth. i think something like $1 trillion has been lost, at least up till yesterday. but that does not typically translate right away into changed behavior by either consumers or businesses. >> how much should people be worried about seeing those kind of gyrations at this point? >> the fact that it happens in that there does not seem to be a change in how people consume and help businesses operate leads me to believe that it's ok. i don't feel too worried about it. >> the report makes a comment that tax revenues are lower because of the expired tax provisions that did not get renewed at the end of last year. as you know, congress is beginning to think about spending those -- sending those provisions again.

can you make the case that bypassing -- you have done it here several times -- the 7179 business extension, if that is it will bring the debt ? iling limit closer assume that the expiring provision will not be renewed. obviously, if it is renewed, that will have an effect on revenues in the short term. i'm not sure, to be honest. we would have to sit down and do the calculations. i hate to yes. >> federal health care spending has been growing faster than the economy, of course.

did you see any differences in ? at trend do you see a faster rate of growth for federal health care spending, or do you see? it slowing down at all any changes? keith: we do not have some of the data yet. we will probably have that by the and in the year. to get an idea of if we want to adjust our forecast and premiums. exchangeup rate in the is always a big unknown in our forecast. we do expect premiums to rise anyway. and the uptake in exchanges is always a big unknown in our forecast to my because we do not have any experience with that yet. >> just to follow-up looking at the larger picture, there has been in the past several years a

slowing in the growth rate in the federal health care spending. the question is, will that continue or will the growth rate return to a faster pace? do you have any better sense for that growth rate is headed at this point? keith: it is certainly part of our forecast that spending on health care will increase significantly going forward. it has been a long-term trend, and then of course, the effect of the subsidies is a big unknown in the exchanges. we do expect that health care spending is going to continue to rise. >> any differences in your projections between now and march traceable to the health care law? keith: no, it is pretty close to the same right now. >> on your revision of the increase and potential labor force participation, what drove you guys to make that change?

has there been any interplay with the afford care act on your projections with labor force participation? and could it inform any thinking about slower wage gains so far over the past 18 months or so? keith: i think our notion of a slightly higher labor force participation in part comes from the pattern. we find people returning to the labor force a little bit faster than we would have anticipated. it makes us think that the cyclical impact of the labor force is bigger than we thought before. that is the main reason. i don't know that we have seen any impact on the labor force participation from the aca. it is hard to know how much that is going to affect things. certainly, you want to keep monitoring it and get an idea of what the impact would be. one of the big issues is that

the employer mandate is only partially kicked in this year and we have more to kick in later. we will have to see what impact that has. >> on interest rates, in your changes from the market a sign -- from the market baseline, you indicate 3 million plus downgrade in interest payments. can you explain that? talk about why that is, because i thought you made a decision on lower than historic rates previously. what new information is there that is lower, or is that just fluctuations in the forecast? and how does this play into the idea that our interest will become such a big word and that we will have trouble in five or 10 or 30 years paying our continued interest?

keith: the change in the interest rate forecast really came from a look at the financial markets and the expectations in the financial markets. we are beginning to expect a little lower growth in interest rates than we did. we made an adjustment for that. but we still anticipate a rise in interest rates, a significant rise in interest rates. in fact, the picture is still up there. we will also have a very large increase in interest payments as interest rates go up. you know, you can adjust it a little bit, but it's still going to be a very large increase in the cost of interest on the debt. >> on the interest rate question, or related i guess, two things. one was there is a line about no expectation for a cola for

interest rate inflation. along similar lines, do you have new data on disability and when that will be exhausted in your estimates? keith: the social security is set by law to follow the consumer index. i forget exactly, but it's a one or two your time change. the way it looks now, there will just not be much inflation on the cpi to give much of an index on social security. that is what we anticipate. and the other part, i'm sorry? >> on disability insurance. keith: i don't recall what it was last time, but i know we talked about it in our long-term budget outlook.

but i don't recall. >> if they haven't already, democrats will probably use this report to say, look, no need to cut spending. republicans will argue long-term we need to do something about it. who is right? [laughter] keith: this doesn't change our long-term projection, or even our 10 year projection. the pattern is very much like it was in march, very much like it was in january. under current law, the growth in debt is not sustainable. at some point it will get to a very high level. obviously, you cannot predict tipping points, but at some point this becomes a problem. the wave is going, it is not just that the debt gets to a high level, i think something like 70% of gdp by 2025. but there is also the trend. 70% and growing. that factors into things as

well. this is an unsustainable path here for the federal debt. >> does your point take into account any kind of economic boost from cutting taxes? in other words, do we use dynamic scoring to indicate revenues would not be as low as previous they suggested? keith: implicitly there is dynamic analysis in this work all the time. it is sort of been nothing new in the economic force that we rely on, the current law that we rely on, and part of the fact -- part of this is the growing debt probably having some effect on crowding out investment and slowing economic growth going

forth. >> speaking of dynamic, since you brought it up, you guys just recently issued your dynamic estimate of a particular bill, the extenders back in early august. i wonder you could give us the aspects of how that decision was made in terms of the formatting, the table and so on. and also, how much of that was made in discussion with the budget committees, particularly the senate budget committee? keith: they certainly requested the estimate and i believe it was large enough for the automatic dynamic analysis to begin. we did that analysis along with jct. part of the analysis is figuring out how to effectively communicate the impact. we did our analysis on that particular tax extension relief act of 2015. we estimated it would increase the deficit by $87 billion over a ten-year timeframe.

we also put in the estimate that without the macroeconomic effects, you can see where those effects are. >> in terms of the fort amounting, was that -- the formatting, what was -- was that decision made here? keith: oh, it was our decision. we also anticipate it will improve the quality of our estimates to be able to improve that -- include that. there was perhaps an issue of our estimates not being centered without having the -- the

macroeconomic effects included. that is probably true to an extent, but there is always uncertainty in terms of forecasting the effects. we are kind of used to the idea of uncertainty in our macro forecast. >> you mentioned center. could you go over that issue again? keith: sure, the tax extension -- the tax relief extension act is a good example. the increasing deficits with by about $97 billion, but you expect the lower income tax rate will have some sort of macroeconomic effect, reducing a little crowding out and such. we anticipate an increase deficit by less than that, by about $87 billion. we had a shift of about $10 billion to our point estimate to the impact, if that makes sense. >> how much of a challenge has

it been to -- i mean, it is easier probably to do a range of dynamic estimate. you estimate a range of the dynamic impact of inflation as opposed to a single number. has it been a challenge or an issue to do a single number rather than a range? keith: in my mind it really happened in, because we are asked for our best estimate. we could put a range around estimates without macro effects just like we can with one with a macro effect. i think we are doing a good job to give a pointed estimate. this is our best estimate. but it is also probably true to communicate the uncertainty in the range. we can do that at least wanted to play. it is hard to do it numerically -- we can at least do that qualitatively. it is hard to do it numerically. >> was the range what you expected, or more than you

expected? keith: i think it was pretty much what we expected. i did not sit down and try to predict it, but we have been using the macroeconomic effects for a while now and we have the models down, so we have a feel for what that will look like. as estimates continue forward, it is important to be transparent on the modelers so we can get some discussion about how we do the estimates and maybe we can improve that over time. >> how much more uncertain is this tax extenders bill, how much more uncertain is this dynamic score of $87 billion than the standard score of $97 billion?

because we hear the score is less certain. this is only a $10 billion difference. what would your thoughts be? keith: on the difficulty with the macroeconomic effects and really, almost all of our estimates, is that there is an unknown thing there. we all know how accurate it is, what the ranges. when we do our forecast, especially something like the long-run forecast, we will do a parameter of values to give you a feel for the accurate a. but that is not released this is the goal standard error -- that is not really a statistical standard error or something like that. hopefully over time we will get a better notion of that and be able to begin communicating that a bit better going forward, what the likely range will be. >> to the tax cuts pay for themselves? keith: no, the evidence is that the tax cuts do not pay for themselves. and you so -- and our models show that in the tax extension relief act.

we are hoping the estimate is more centered now, that we are going to get into the right -- that the point estimate is being more accurate. >> there has been uncertainty lately. not to be a pessimist, but we do have a fed at the zero lower around. we do have an historically high and growing amount of debt to gdp. what are the risks to these two conditions should there be a global recession, which is presumably not unthinkable given what we are seeing in some of these markets. keith: i'm not sure the markets are suggesting anything about a global recession as of yet. as long as the long-term economic fundamentals remain and change, then this is not some we should worry about stop and what

i have seen -- what we should worry about. and what i've seen from the fed is that the fluctuations in the equity markets, that's not the same thing. that is one of the reasons why we are concerned about the growing debt, because as debt continues to grow in handcuffs the government if we go into another recession about what they can do policy wise to work through it. we lose flexibility. and to give you an idea of how important that is, i will repeat something that you probably know. but keep in mind the jet to -- the debt to gdp ratio in 2007 was something like 30% of gdp. we are now up to 74% and that is a huge change. that is a difficult thing. starting at 74% would be a difficult thing to do with another downturn like that.

>> there was something in the changes about -- between march and last week about the $200 million in related health care. it was reclassified in march and then reclassified again this time. can you walk us through? keith: i think it was a technical change, but the fact that it was in our forecast in march makes it a change that affected our estimate of revenues, but it did not fall into the technical category. >> what was the original thing to come up with $200 billion? what was the treatment in march and -- the treatment in march versus the treatment now?

keith: that i do not know. i have had too many things to look at. >> we can follow up. keith: so it is absolutely clear we have left you with no questions? >> its things like there are not as many changes in this update as in a lot of the previous reports. it seems like minor changes. keith: i don't have experience with previous reports, but certainly the economic change, the drop in and disappointing first-quarter with growth had a bit of an impact.

and even now it looks like since july 7, even less of an impact than first thought because the data looked a little better going forward. and then, i guess, the revenue rise. but other than that, we really haven't changed our views on the potential of gdp in the long-term view of the economy and the budget going forward. we have not changed that much. we still have a tricky time because we are still looking at significant slack in the economy. we've got until the end of 2017, at least by our forecast, until that slack is gone. and until that goes, we don't anticipate the wage growth will be what we would like it to be, what it should be until that slack goes away. i think that will be a challenge going forward. that we get sufficient economic growth. >> this may be outside your purview, but any thoughts on what kind of policy changes could accelerate that growth and

reduce the slack? keith: i wouldn't want to set speculate -- to speculate on that. it is oh is difficult to imagine what will spur the economy in the short run. we are doing now is the setting of the automatic stabilizers. the demand has faded from that. that is what we are dealing with, but you are always dealing with that in a recession. one of the things that i think looks like a real almost unknown challenge right now is productivity is not growing like it usually does through a business cycle. and i think that is probably a real concern not just to the united aids, but around the world. productivity growth being strong -- to the united states, but

around the world. productivity growth being strong. it is actually part of our forecast that we will get a bounce back in productivity, but in some ways it is overdue right now. >> is it that worldwide productivity growth is weak? keith: it is. there is no real clear answer. hopefully when we see it bounce back we will figure out why it was this low. but that is an important part of this forecast and the revised forecast, productivity. when he gets back to something like it usual long-term range of growth. -- like it's usual long-term range of growth. >> can you walk us through where that potential gdp has been to where it is now to where it could go?

keith: something like potential gdp, it requires a number of things. you get back to full use of economic resources. you get your labor force balancing back -- bouncing back and unemployment to bounce back. we've probably got some catch up in capital investment. in fact, part of our forecast is a little ketchup in business investment. actually, that is one of the things that we differ a little bit from some of the other forecasters. we are a bit more bullish about a bounce back in investment. but you get labor force back and investment back, and in you hopefully get this productivity back. that is sort of the at -- the recipe for economic growth going forward. and although we've had some disconnect between productivity and wage growth, a number of years ago growth in productivity is now following labor compensation.

they still are related and we are still expecting you will need to have growth in productivity and competition. and that is one of the things, too, the share of gdp is still low. that needs to bounce back. that will be part of getting rid of the labor market slack and increasing demand for labor services. >> this coming saturday marks the 10-year anniversary of hurricane katrina hitting the gulf coast. the storm displays nearly one million people and killed nearly 2000 along the coast from florida to texas. a year after the hurricane, c-span's and a crew to the region to look at the recovery, and tonight, we'll show you scenes from st. bernard parish a townsiana hollowed by

meeting with then mayor ray nagin. here's a portion of what you will see. >> we purchased a total of 107 trailers, and i have them at four different sites, but when you walk across the street here, you will see 42 set up for our teachers and -- members. that was the only way, especially back in november, that i could get a staff at the school to teach the children because there was no place to live. if you go further behind into that subdivision, you will see complete and utter devastation. you will see very few people actually living there, gutted homes, some not added as of yet. some totally destroyed. you will see some trailers in front of their homes where

people are working on them, but you will not see the vibrant community there once was. >> residents of new orleans reacting to the government's response after hurricane katrina. you can see the entire 2005 town hall meeting with hurricane katrina victims tonight starting at 8:00 eastern. also, we will show you a tour of st. bernard parish in louisiana a year after the hurricane struck. by the way, president obama will be in new orleans meeting with residents there and talk about the rebuilding. we will have live coverage of the president's remarks starting at 5:00 eastern. coming up friday, "washington journal" will be spending the morning delving into the anniversary of hurricane katrina, talking with a guest live from new orleans, including former mayor marc morial.

"washington journal" friday morning. new orleans mayor mitch landrieu now on how the city recovered from hurricane katrina and where it stands now. he spoke at a symposium to mark the 10th anniversary of the hurricane. this 40-minute event was hosted by "the atlantic" in new orleans with cooperation of the urban institute. goldberg: i'm a national correspondent at "the atlantic, and i want to welcome all of you again to this very important conference. i cover sheet of main subject areas. u.s. foreign-policy is one, and mitch landrieu is the other. [laughter] that's what it seems like lately, at least. so i'm very glad we have the mayor with us.

he be as lee needs no introduction, so i want to jump right into this conversation -- he obviously needs no introduction, so i want to jump right into this conversation. since i have you on the couch, i thought i would ask a shrink question if you want to lie down. mayor landrieu: this isn't the time to lie down. mr. goldberg: i want to take you back 10 years and talk about how you felt exactly 10 years ago. i'm trying to imagine this, trying to picture this. you are a lieutenant governor, and helicopters, in boats. you come to your city, 80% of it underwater. dying at intolerable levels -- completely intolerable levels. did you ever feel like maybe his was simply too big? that may be the city could come back from this level of devastation? mayor landrieu: no.

i never for one second -- and i don't most people in new orleans -- felt anything other than we were 100% sure that somehow, someway our city was going to come back. all of us, which is weird about this whole tragedy, is that not only was it and if the two should a failure, we did not see ourselves as being whatever we were at the time. everyone got hurt. the first responders were hurt, too. it was not like some of the else got hurt in the first responders were coming in. muchl lost pretty everything in some form or fashion, and it literally never occurred to me that anything other than the city coming back would eventually be -- mayor landrieu: but you --mr. goldberg: but you heard national politicians at the time. honest,ndrieu: to be that angered me more than anything at the time. it was a visceral, angry response, but the initial response was that's just insane. who in their right mind would

think new orleans is not coming back? we've had hurricanes is the beginning of time, but just as a new orleans, my sense of what everybody else felt was, "hell, no, we are coming back." just the stupid comments people around the country made i think gave new orleans a much greater sense and purpose. thank you, denny hastert, for motivating you. mayor landrieu: he was not the only one. big one.erg: he was a let me jump to today. if, got for bid, the same exact type of storm hit the city next week, what would new orleans look like? mayor landrieu: first of all, the country has a hard time understanding this, but we are the veterans of lots of storms. they come in, they go out. that was a big storm.

camille was a big storm. what the people of new orleans won america to know was that this was not a natural disaster. this was a man-made disaster. this happened -- [laughter] -- [applause] what happened to new orleans happened because the levees broke. mississippi got the wind. we then got the water. it was an infrastructure failure. we say a lot that new orleans is the nation's canary in the coal mine. just like the discussion we had about income inequality in the very difficult is were suffering through, there are things in this nation that have going on time, and the people of new orleans want everyone to know that today we are stronger. dollars of6 million levy investments. it's only built to category three. we believe it should be built to category five. thatat as a way, just be as it may, the storm came in the

levees wouldy, the not breach. nobody in their right mind would say that anybody in any city has a 100% guarantee that you are not going to get hurt, so that is what the resilience effort is about -- rebuilding the coast, not letting it deteriorate. making sure the levees are strong. making sure the buildings we built our built the right way. then being consistent with the previous panels and making sure our consistent -- our communities are consistent and strong so we can sustain bad things that are going to come our way. you know, if it's a terrorist attack, a hurricane, and earthquake, a heat wave that comes in, communities have to find a way to get stronger, and katrina showed us we were not as ready as we think we should be, and we got a lot more work to do. mr. goldberg: you have talked a lot about gratitude in the weeks running up to this, and you will be talking about it this week, but you want better levees. want better storm protection. tell me very specifically why that has not happened.

well, money.u: that is the specific answer, and the will on behalf of congress. one of the things, and i'm speaking to the choir in this room -- this 80 and the gulf coast produces about 35% of this nation's oil and gas, which is that we are the tip of the spear in this nation and protecting our national security -- this city and the gulf coast. that's what energy independence gives us. that is why we aren't important. in years before the storm, we beg people to pay attention, and then katrina hit, and they said, "oh, man, something really big is happening." if you want the city to survive, you have to make sure you protect it because by protecting us, you are protecting america. the levee system is better than before, stronger than before. it was an engineering failure by the federal government. read that as it may, there is still discussion going on that if you really want to get to a

place where you can resist risk more, it would be category five storm protection, but that is a discussion that is ongoing, a big battle we continue to have about pursuing the coast and the levees. mr. goldberg: let's talk about the way the city has changed. you heard this on the first panel, and one of the things people talk about is that in .any ways, it is a richer city it is also a wider city -- whiter city than it used to be. what are you going to do or what do you want to do to bring back that population? first of all, i hope everybody comes home. i travel to houston and atlanta because those cities are housing the most of our residents who decided not to come back. this week is designed really to

do three things. one is to remember all of our family members that we lost. terrible stories of arsenal tragedy that we continue to know about personally that we participated in and were reading about in the paper, fathers letting the hands of their daughters go. it's going to be hard to relive that, but we are here to remember. secondly, what the rest of the world and -- to thank the rest of the world and our friends and neighbors and expressing gratitude to cities that took us in. 32 cities received our people, made sure our kids got in school , make sure we got dry before we had the chance to come home and in some is is is, kept them. instead of thinking about how far we have the go, just being thankful for being alive today and being able to have a second chance. the third is what i think is a miraculous thing that the people of new orleans have done. new deathave a

experience, personally or institutionally, all you want to do is get back to where you were the day before the bad thing happened. you just want it to go away. the people of new orleans spent a minute, and i think it is something that is amazing by being honest -- katrina and rita did not cause our problems. a lot of the discussions were having today -- we are having today were problems that were well before the storm. they are issues that are just coursing through the presidential debate right now, being evidenced by the tea party on the right or the folks ,howing up at ciccone park etc., and there's uneasiness around the country on the issues of income inequality. it is true that the city has changed somewhat, but the city is still 60% african-american. is a majority minority city. we have had an influx of hispanic brothers and sisters that stormed into the city and to help us rebuild, and i'm

thankful for them, too. the caucasian population is .bout 32% and then other, which is hispanic, vietnamese, etc. this has always been a very diverse city. we have never seen ourselves in the racial terms of being white or black. people in new orleans are different in the sense that we always believe that diversity is a strength and not a weakness, but we still have the same that everyfissures other community has. we want to make sure everybody is welcome, make sure that everybody knows they have a weke in the game, make sure do not sweep anything under the rug about the difficulties going forward. oliver thomas, who was here a little while ago, who was in the water with me 10 years ago, said 52% of african-american men are not working. that is an unexceptional number, but people in new orleans who do not get around much will know that if you ask the same

questions in cities like baltimore, oakland, content, etc., it's that are a -- the black lives matter movement is about what we are doing to help disadvantaged communities get to where they are going. we have to take the time to rebuild institutions and make so people can have the opportunities to do better. that's why we reconstructed the health care delivery system. that's why we trying to restructure the education system, which is a source of concern for some folks, so people can have the opportunities to rebuild generation of wealth and have the opportunities -- mr. goldberg: let me press you a little bit on this. first, our mutual friend said that one of the problems he diagnosis is we tend to -- he to judge is we tend a comeback by how rich the rich are getting. i want to know if you agree with that, if that is the metric

people are applying to new orleans, and two, what specifically you are doing to make, for instance, housing affordable so the mainly at an american populations -- mainly african-american populations in euston and atlanta have a way to get here. aldermendrieu: the have been great, passionate advocates for new orleans and speak truth, but it was interesting because we have a sense in that we are kind of getting back to what was normal before. it actually takes time to rebuild institutions so human beings can take advantage of institutions and continue over generations to do better, and these things are crisscrossing now and creating dissension. i don't think anyone can argue that the physical school buildings, the $1.8 billion that have invested for giving our

children much better physical facilities to go into -- there used to be stories across the press about the bathrooms being not habitable in our public schools. betterole thing is much and much different. what is going on in schools, producing high graduation rates, .ower dropout rates what he mentioned before was a very serious problem. there are all kinds of ramifications, and that is true, and folks in the city can just remember -- in 1960, the city in it.,000 people we were bigger than houston and bigger than atlanta. in the population started going down. the night before the storm, it was down to 460 5000 people, and to storm hit -- it was down 465,000 people, and the storm

hit. now we are growing again. other cities have problems with shrinking tax basis. now we are growing and other people are moving in and people are getting displaced. that's another common problem .ou have to work through i would rather have the growth problem than the shrinking problem. 169hat regard, the city has square miles in it, plenty of room to take care of a lot of people. one of the things we're doing right now through government action, zoning codes, rules, regulations, if we get tax taxntives -- if we give , is makingor not sure that there are incentives in place for people to make the right decisions. inherent in that is some people move in, some people move out. the gentrification rate comes up, it goes down. what we are doing in the city is

trying to manage the conflict is so everyone has an opportunity to come into the city. takes time.ult and some neighborhoods have come back asked her than others. lowerldberg: why is the ninth so slow to come back? mayor landrieu: that is a next like question. the federal, state, and local governments have money coming in. -- that is an excellent question. you will not be surprised that african-americans that do not live in the ninth ward that want their neighborhood built or are saying give to the ninth ward everything and give to us later -- everybody is saying, "give me my stuff now." it is not a racial argument or an equity argument. it is "i want stuff in my neighborhood tomorrow, mayor."

the one universal is get down blight fast. we have taken down more blight than any city in america tip o'neill, all politics is local -- it does not matter if we have taken it down faster than anywhere. next door to the house, you have not done anything. we have tried to manage the allocations of these resources by neighborhood and by need. it gets hot, the poor get hotter, and when it gets cold, the poor get colder. million innt $500 the lower ninth ward when you add it all up. the lower ninth ward will say that we did not give us much as everybody else. that is not true per capita. the damage is so significant that it's going to take a lot more money to do it. i will remind you because i feel like i'm on the side of begging

here and demanding more. just to give you a metric -- we had about $150 billion of damages in the city of new orleans. not talking the gulf coast, just us. we got about $71 million in reimbursement. everybodyns is not gets everything all the time, and you cannot do everything at once. i'm completely committed to the lower ninth ward, but i'm recommitted to every neighborhood in the city as well. a lot of neighborhoods have to get up. when you do not have as much coming in as you need, it takes time to actually get it done, but the ninth ward will eventually get back. mr. goldberg: let me turn to a topic we spend a lot of time talking about, which is violence. homicide is down from historically high levels, but -- and otherg

cities are seeing it, to be fair -- a spike in homicides. you are making this cause the centerpiece of your administration. why is homicide going back up right now, given all the resources you seem to be throwing up the issue of violence in the neighborhood? mayor landrieu: i'm apoplectic about the issue of violence in the neighborhood. the overwhelming number of victims are african-american men, and this is true all across america. this is something we've been working on a long time. this is not a you need more police officers so you can stop murder. this is much deeper, and it actually folds into the entire thing we are talking about, if it's education, health care, jobs. it really is about if the lives of young african-american men

that are in the united states of america because this is a symptom, in my view, of the fact that we have not really cared or focused, and we have lost our way in this country. -- we had tried to focus on the law enforcement side. the ride or die gang is being prosecuted in federal court. they are responsible for killing a lot of folks on the streets of new orleans. out.ll see how that works you got to stop them from hurting themselves and other people, but you got to get on the front of it, too. there are people in this room who know more than i do because we are walking the streets all the time, when we are losing young people who are victims that were not intended and the young men themselves, this issue is something i don't think it country can look array from -- can look away from. mr. goldberg: what is your analysis? mayor landrieu: nobody knows.

if it was happening in new orleans -- actually, our shootings are down this year for the first time in a long time. year when our murders were down, our shootings were up here he last year, we recorded the lowest number of murders since 1971, but we have the highest number of shootings. this year, we have the highest haver of -- this year, we the lowest number of shootings, but our murder rate was back up. nobody knows the answer to this. why is the uptake happening in new orleans, baltimore, chicago, even boston, which was leading the nation in this effort -- why is the uptick happening? security and securing our nation is a federal responsibility in partnership with the state and local government, and i think we have left this issue as a country many, many times ago and are not putting the resources necessary to get this done.

if we double down and focus on it, we can get it together, but we've got to get in front of this. early childhood education, good parenting, making sure the schools and church and enrichment programs in the afternoon because the light goes about 7, 8,ng kids or nine years old, and everybody that works in the community can see this. once kids get to that point, they start seeing no sense of hope, future, anything, and they start careening off into a place where we do not want them to go. mr. goldberg: one word that i did not hear that much was the word "gun." your good friend michael that are as the mayor of philadelphia says it's much easier to kill someone with a gun than without a gun -- your good friend, michael nutter, the mayor of philadelphia. are alandrieu: guns massive piece of it. there's no question about it.

you and i were talking to guys that were serving life. you asked them if it was the gun , and i think three of the guys in the room said no, it was me, it was my responsibility, and they said that kids today are they were.r than but when i reminded him of even though he said that was these .oung men can now rent a gun you can get a gun anywhere at any time, so it is a massive problem. the next question you asked me is a political western -- political question. what can you do about it yet when the state of louisiana said you cannot do anything about it, so one of the challenges we have is how you honor somebody's constitutional right and at the protect. there are a couple of things we can do from my perspective. when sandy hook happened, there was this big folderol about 's.47

most of the stuff happens on the streets of new orleans with handguns, but congress spent a lot of time just on ak-47's. one thing the federal government can do is have a direct action statute that allows them to prosecute people if they commit a felony with a gun. it has to be something now that is tied to a drug offense. the second thing they can do is putting 100,000 police officers on the street with federal resources. back in the day when we had our first decline, the city was receiving $6 million, $7 million a year to hire new police officers. this was introduced by then senator biden. that worked because what happened is it allowed the police department to get into the tough neighborhoods, to community policing, and added resources, so that helped. finally, it seems to me that even the nra, right, can agree that we have good background

checks and we keep guns out of the hands of convicted felons, people that have issues with mental issues, etc., but the country has come to a stand till on that. unless and until congress changes their mind and the legislature allows congress to do things, we are stuck. i love my friend mike nutter. i do not disagree with him, but the politics across the south are very different. we cannot legally get there because of restrictions we have. mr. goldberg: let me talk about another response to violent crime, and this is noticeable to any outsider who flies into new orleans. you talk about beautiful new school buildings across new orleans. there's a big, beautiful new building right off the highway that's a new parish jail. mayor landrieu: it's insane.

mr. goldberg: talk to me about why -- you cannot jail your way -- if you believe you cannot jail your way out of the homicide problem, why is that jail there? [applause] mayor landrieu: you might want i ask somebody else that, but will give you my thought about this. it is very important that we secure the streets of new safe.s and we make things there are bad people out there, for whatever reason, that will hurt themselves or other people. you have to have enough law enforcement to do that, but 56% to 60% of our budget is spent on the back end -- police officers, jails, etc. did not, i said katrina cause all of our problems. this is a perennial light that has been going on between whoever is sitting in the seat

and sitting in right now and whoever is sitting in the sheriff's chair -- this is a perennial fight. we have to if we are going to jail people, house them in a way that is consistent with their constitutional rights, but we have a weird system where the jailff gets to control the in the mayor has to pay for it. whenever you have -- mr. goldberg: sounds like it's better to be the sheriff. mayor landrieu: it is. whenever you are spending anybody else's money, it's better. whenever you have a system set up where one person can spend the money and another person is responsible for paying for it, you are going to create tension. it's a bad model, but that it's what it is -- that is what it is. in this country right now, one of the things we've gotten wrong is how to do in conservation and help returning citizens come home in a very significant way.

you know this. the recidivism rate is exponentially high. we jail more people in louisiana than anywhere else in the world per capita, and it has not worked because our crime rate, not with any what you hear from people who do not live in the city, is terrible. what, it's really bad in shreveport. lake charles, lafayette, with the highest juvenile crime rate in the state, baton rouge -- it's a statewide problem and a nationwide problem as well. the numbers are that in louisiana, we have always been a violent community, so one of the things we done without aching about it -- put people in jail, don't think about it, don't care how much it costs, and with a budget of the department of corrections goes from $200 million to $800 million, money that could have spent on everybodyeducation, says great, lock them up, throw away the key, and people return to more crime. some folks on the other end of broad street want to build a

bigger thing. advocates have said we can be tough and smart on crime. we don't have to arrest everybody for everything. if someone gets pulled over and did not have a drivers license, it said of taking him to jail and put him there for a day, we .ould give him a summons for minor offenses so you can reduce the jail population and make sure that we are spending less money on back end, more on the front end and get a better .esult mr. goldberg: we will take questions and a second, but let me ask one final thing related to the jail crisis. innovation after katrina. before we got there, you told me that it will bring me to my knees, and in many knees, it

will. the highway literally ends. it's a one-way highway from new highway.a pipeline and 2100 residents of new orleans are permanent residents of angola. what post-katrina innovations are you most pleased with in the city that is going to stop that pipeline? what are the specific things your administration has done that you think will cause that jail to be closed from disuse, and what will actually reduce the population of people from new orleans in angola? all, landrieu: first of it's not just my administration. a lot of responsibility is spread out over a bunch of different it's too shall frameworks. if it's the city of new orleans or the school district, which , what i'mdoes not run

most proud of is the level of coordination between and amongst all the different entities. i call this the new orleans way because it's literally true that nothing has happened in the city in the last 10 years without everybody having to participate in some form or fashion. nobody has got everything we need, so we cannot get anything done if we do not wrap our arms around each other. even though there are still some folks who are left out, we all are marching in the right direction, so the institutional changes, even though there are concerns about the schools, that will eventually get itself worked out, but the image now in new orleans is people believe every child not only has a right to a great education but has to have an opportunity, and i don't think the school system is going back to what it was before where we had 73% to 80% of our schools failing. our graduation rate before katrina was 50%. now it's 75%, higher than the country. there's always down on the

ground a lot of elbowing and stuff going on, but that is the single most important thing we can do in the city, make sure the education system gets right and works right. the second thing is we have to fight for early childhood education because most of these kids that go on to do very difficult things -- you can tell , the criminal justice reforms we are making great headway with in terms of hardening with -- in terms of partnering with with the da and gang units going and are important, but of course, we need more resources. the big danger we have in the city is the further you get away out katrina and the further of stress you get, we will have a tendency to go back to all the small little fights that we had arc.ose the overarching

i told you this week was about commemorating and remembering, about saying thank you this week for the people in new orleans and all of us -- by the way, there are tons of events that everybody in the city is invited this week did not happen by accident. we organized it so we can all start talking. it's about what we want the city to look like in the future. we want to use the anniversary to think about how we as a community are going to keep the momentum of. -- keep the momentum the momentum up. one of the people on the panel asked how we would keep the momentum up. we have to stay out in front. we should use the opportunity to actually -- mr. goldberg: tell us about one president in particular who is coming on friday.

how did that come about? personallyieu: i invited him because i think it is important as we think about how this works to get into a issue of healing and president bush was the president when this occurred. the response was slow and inadequate. into time to get our legs underneath us. we have gone through different mayors and governors. after the pickup we had to work together closely over a couple of years and i think it is important for us to be gracious, thoughtful, treat the president with dignity and respect, and say thank you to him. has beenot one of us perfect. not one of us doesn't have something we would say, whatever. this was the united states of america, not them against us, not us against them. all of us coming together and

putting down our jerseys. it is important for the people to take a minute and be grateful .nd thankful to everybody i invited president obama down, president bush my president clinton. we three of them have said are so important to them and the rest of the world the holy in the past, they are all going to come and remember the folks that we lost and help us get to where we want to. mayor landrieu: we are going -- mr. goldberg: we going to go to questions. >> we have time for one quick question. mr. goldberg: anyone have a quick question? she put her hand up. allison.drieu: hey there is a lot of work that

we have all done. a lot more that needs to be done obviously. you and i have had a lot of conversations. one thing, connectivity to the suburbs. as we look at improving employment rates for african-american men, obviously many training opportunities and awareness of job opportunities. there is a lot of great opportunities up river and more with coastal restoration projects. things like helping people connect to those jobs via -- it is a hurdle. countedndrieu: we never anything in the city. we didn't know. one of the things we do now is count everything. it is hard to look at the mirror at yourself. you may not mind. i mind. to look at yourself and analyze

yourself and do a forensic study, this city has stripped down and done that. thingshings -- there are we saw that we didn't like. do you want to know? beings not working. we are doingings, something called a pathway to prosperity which is where we try to find individuals. they are not all the same individual. they are different ages, different neighborhoods, different parts of their lives. some did not get through high school. some got a ged. some graduated. what we're trying to do, we are terrible about this in america, vice president biden is trying to work on this, workforce development and trading. not everybody is going to college. it is a great aspiration to

have. , $75 million kids worth of scholarships the best universities. a lot of young men are not going to get there. in louisiana we have a great opportunity, two medical centers coming out of the ground, we are building late charles the $60 billion. do you know why we don't have transportation to and from, folks did not want folks moving in and out of their neighborhoods and on the issue of race that is changing. there is a need for folks that are working for them. we are trying to connect these young men with jobs that exist and create the pathway to them. the first and most important pathway is the training for the specific job. we are talking to all the institutions around the universities. you have people living in your

shadow that should be working in that building. there is no better example. if you go down arlington avenue you walk down across, you will see the development. individuals growing up in the new housing, better than it was before, should be evil to walk down the street three blocks and welcome to the medical center and do a plethora of jobs depending on what the skill set is. nurse,otomist, a diagnostics, a doctor, to the person who runs the place. my hope been dream is in a that pathwayrs will be easy, and the people that live in the neighborhoods will be running those institutions. that is what a beautiful new orleans would look like. mr. goldberg: thank you. mayor landrieu: thank all of you. [applause] saturday marks the 10th

anniversary of hurricane katrina , one of the five deadliest storms in u.s. history. tonight, c-span's to her of damage in louisiana. >> you can't describe it. it's your whole life gone. community. all your friends and family gone. , still your friends and family you don't see anymore. you don't forget it. not for the rest of your life. >> followed by a town hall meeting in new orleans moderated by the mayor. >> i'm relying on you. level, all, federal other levels. i voted for you.

to represent me on a local level. i don't know what else to do. >> thursday night more from the atlantic conference with fema's ate.g fugu hurricane katrina anniversary coverage this week on c-span. there congress departed for august rent a number of members spoke about how their districts .ave favored -- fared this is 50 minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. under the speaker's announced the of january 6, 2015, gentleman from louisiana, mr. scalise, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. mr. scalise: thank you, mr. speaker.

august 29 of this year will ark the 10-year anniversary of that -- when hurricane katrina struck ground, causing massive devastation throughout southeast louisiana, as well as other parts of the gulf coast, mississippi and alabama. mr. speaker, i'd first ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this special order. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. scalise: mr. speaker, tonight we're going to talk about the devastation that was caused by hurricane katrina and of course it starts with the that were ,800 lives lost. people from louisiana, mississippi, florida, alabama and georgia, who all lost their lives through this devastating storm.

but, mr. speaker, we're also going to talk about something else. that's the strength and resiliency of the people of the gulf coast who persevered, who rebuilt and ultimately, mr. speaker, we're going to talk about the recovery of the people of the gulf coast from this devastating storm. i'd first like to yield to my friend from the great state of alabama, mr. robert aderholt, as much time as he may consume. mr. aderholt: thank you. mr. speaker, i want to just mention to you that it's hard to believe that it has been 10 years ago, in the early morning hours of august 29, just a month from today, that hurricane katrina slammed into the gulf coast. as a category three hurricane. with sustained winds up to 140 miles per hour and a storm

surge over nine meters high in some places, the impact of the lf region was very devastating. while the economics can cost of the storm -- economic cost of the storm is very difficult to measure, some estimates have $100 damage over billion. hundreds of thousands of refugees scattered across the country, most importantly no price tag can be assigned to the loss of the nearly 2,000 lives that were lost. in the aftermath of the tragic storm, there were many hearings, there were many inquiries, studies, investigations, reforms and policy changes that were conducted and most of those were for good reason. the initial emergency response to katrina was far less than what should be expected of our federal, state and local governments. however, this evening i do want o thank my colleague for his allowing this, putting together

this time. as he said, we're not here to talk about the failures so much as we are to talk about the spirit of the people that were affected. it's easy to sit back and to point fingers and to place blame. but this evening we want to talk about and bring attention to the spirit of the people that were affected, both directly and indirectly by hurricane katrina. in the days after the became clear n it that thousands of people would not be able to return to their homes, thousands of people from louis were given housing -- louisiana were given housing, and in fact housing that was purchased by fema and stationed in, actually in my home state of alabama, in the state parks. the outpouring that came the following days of support from the local community was i think best described as just overwhelming. as soon as the people found out that the refugees were headed into our area, supplies were

starting to be gathered together and drives were started immediately. a member of my own staff organized one of those numerous drives on his own initiative. thousands of pounds of food, of clothing, personal hygiene products were collected. they were distributed to the people. and these people that were helped had little more than . st the clothes on their back i'm also proud that after this show of support, that many of the refugees decided to make the fourth district, the district i represent, their home. in one particular case, a refugee from louisiana need -- ended up working for a state park where she had been housed. finally, the resilience of alabamans who lived along the gulf coast was also inspiring as well. though the gulf coast of alabama was not the hardest hit of the region, the gulf coast

of alabama was severely impacted by hurricane katrina. while there are some healing that still needs to be done, the gulf coast is not only back in business, but has returned to life as usual and it is thriving. new shipyards are being constructed, new businesses are opening up and tourism has returned to the region. this, i believe, is a testament to the spirit of the people of the state of alabama, as well as our neighboring states, as mississippi and louisiana. and as we move forward as a country and as a region, i hope that we'll not only look to the lessons we've learned from the failures of this response, but also to the lessons we learned about kindness, the lessons of charity, being a good neighbor and actually the spirit of this great nation. i thank my colleague from louisiana to draw attention gain shes not to place the

blame on the organizations that we could point blame, but to the spirit and greatness of all those involved in the kindness, charity and spirit that arose. and i yield back. mr. scalise: i thank you. i appreciate my colleague from alabama, mr. aderholt's comments. so much of the national attention on hurricane katrina focused on the city of new orleans and we all remember the ficts, the visuals of people that were displaced of floodwaters that sat for two, three weeks, but then, of course, we also remember the many things that happened along the way for people who rebuilt, who came back, who per see veered.

my colleague and friend who represents the city of new orleans along with me, obviously was deeply involved in the recovery efforts. i want to yield to my colleague from new orleans, mr. rich morned. mr. richmond: thank you mr. speaker. and thank you to my colleague, congressman scalise who represents the neighboring district from me and part of the metropolitan area of new orleans along with myself. let me start off by saying something about new orleans and the people of new orleans. the people of new orleans are a very, very resilient people and it started from the beginning of the history of new orleans up until today. we started off, and you can go back to 1788 when there was a fire in new orleans that burned

856 of the 1,100 buildings that made up new orleans. that was 80% of the city burned. six years later, 212 buildings burned, but the good thing about the people of new orleans, we to s pick up ourselves up rebuild and make a better life. o to 185 when we had a yellow fever and epidemic. almost 8,000 people died. and if you look at the time 45,000 185 and 1905, people lost their lives. the city picked itself up and dusted itself off. 1965, and rward to that was the year that hurricane

betsy devastated the city of new orleans and that was the first storm to wrack up the cost of $1 billion in damage and i will talk about hurricanes katrina and rita that hit new orleans and devastated the entire gulf coast, but significantly damaged new orleans. and let me say for the record, even after we picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves off and to rebuild after hurricane katrina then comes the bp oil spill. better ed to create a new orleans and better louisiana. going back to hurricane katrina, which my good friend, steve scalise talked about, that the total loss of life in hurricane

atrina is over 1,800 people. 1,577 of those people were from louisiana. and let me break down some of the causes of death. 40% of the deaths were caused by drowning. 25% by injury and trauma. and heart conditions caused another 11%. and if you remember the devastation and destruction on the tv's that covered it, you understand the anxiety of the people that were down there, suffered. let me go into the other statistics, to just say, many people always say that hurricane katrina was one of the largest natural disasters in the history of the united states. i appreciate the sentiment, but

factually that is not correct. hurricane katrina was a result combined e disaster with a natural disaster. the army corps of engineers noticed that the levees in -- that protected new orleans in the metro area were not sufficient. and when the storm hit, the evees washed away. there was a mississippi gulf outlet, it was designed by the corps of engineers to allow ship traffic to the new orleans, it was designed to be 100 widse wide. by the time katrina hit, almost 30, 0 years after it was built, it wasn't 100 widse. it was a mile wide in its sections and that water

coming out of the gulf of mexico caused a lot of the deficient administration. i wanted to clear up the fact that this was not a natural disaster. to do with e part mankind having their hand in it and inadequate building by the corps of engineers. before i yield back to congressman scalise, let me also say when katrina hit, although the government response was lacking, the american people stood up, recognized the situation and opened their hearts to the people of louisiana, the people of mississippi and some of the people of texas. 300n ruge alone handled

,000. houston, texas handled right around 250,000 people in terms of bringing them into shelters and other places so they could be safe and have some housing. now you still have 111,000 people in houston that are from the louisiana area. i watched the extraordinary work of the representative jackson lee and al green to provide for the new orleans area. in nta, 100,000 aevacuees shelters with hank johns and and john lewis. atlanta still is home to 70,000. san antonio, texas, held 35,000 people at the time and hold 18,000. and birmingham housed 20,000

ople and housed 1,500 to 13,000. back i attempt to yield or prior to yielding back, i want to cover the population decrease. i will cover more in-depth with y good good friend and benny thompson. but i would just say. the population of new orleans was 884,000 before katrina and right now after katrina it was 230,000 people. and that's a decrease of almost half of the city's population. so when you look at the damage 3 d the fookt that we lost 1

,000 housing units, you and thend the magnitude difference the station. we will start building a better new orleans and better future. we still have many needs and many things that we need to right that didn't go right during the storm. i wanted to talk about how the people of new orleans were during this storm. and with that, mr. speaker, i will yield back to congressman scalise. mr. scalise: you talked about the devastation in the 18 3 lives we lost throughout the

gulf coast still live with us and we remember the people that lost their lives in this devastating storms. some of the things that you saw from the people of sweast louisiana. i saw firsthand, the strength the resiliency of the people, back in the time where there were people questioning whether or not new orleans would be rebuilt or should be rebuilt. you saw that conversation start around the country. but mr. speaker, that didn't last long before you saw the nation come together and make a commitment and saw the people of new orleans make a commitment and the city would be rebuilt. this is where the sorry of recovery comes out so bright and strong, mr. speaker, and that is how the people of the gulf coast, how the people of new orleans responded.

they weren't going to rebuild what was broken. you saw people demanding that we build better, stronger, more efficient. people started demanding that government work different, that government work bet are. those levees that failed caused so much of that devastation. people said we need to reform the way that levees are bit. that w a citizen uprising led to changes. we changesed the constitution of louisiana to refire that people who serve on levee boards vr experience in engineering, hydrology. you saw citizen groups. and 50,000 people signed a petition not long after that

demanded that laws be changed, mr. speaker, to make those kind of reforms in levee boards. and when you look at that and the work of fema. when you look at those levee, they are better. the flood protection that didn't happen by accident. you look at the political reform. and as we all know, every state has got its problems. but louisiana had a bad history of political corruption, going back over 100 years and the people of louisiana demanded a better political system, you actually saw citizens picking up the telephone calling the f.b.i. if they saw an ounce of pliltcrups. that was a zero tolerance.

people went to jail. but it was because the public said we demand better and that helped lead to the recovery that we see today. look at the school system today. before katrina struck, norms had one of the most failed and corrupt public school systems. we had a high school top student who couldn't pass the exam. people said we are going to rebuild and demand a better public school system. and you saw sweeping reforms move through the state legislature setting up charter schools that are touted as model reforms. that didn't happen by accident but the people demanded better

from government. we saw government fail. it's well documented. but the story of new orleans today, 10 years after the storm is a story of a strong and resilient people who said we will absolutely rebuild, but we aren't going to rebuild the same way as it was before with all of the flaws and problems that existed. we are going to demand bet are. you can see the recovery. it's not over. some nadse are working to rebuild, but so many neighborhoods that are stronger today, more thrivinging today. young people coming in from part of this o be recovery. exciting time to be in the new orleans region today. but as we reflect on the devastation of crib katrina 10

years ago, we know how much it took it come and worksing with the pastors resource council, who came together to say while government had its failings, communities came together, churches came doing, faith-based groups like we know they have done to help to give people to ople and so we obviously reflect on and pray for the lives that were lost and the devastation that was horrific but celebrate the recovery that is still so evident in the people of louisiana. . mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2015, the

gentleman from louisiana, mr. graves, is recognized for the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader. mr. graves: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, 10 years ago, the scene flashing across our television screens showed what appeared to be a third world country. literally bodies floating in the streets, people that were homeless, homes washed away, one of the worst natural dasters in america's history. mr. speaker, over 12,00 of our brothers, our sisters, our mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, our neighbors, our friends, perished in the disaster. on august 29, 2005. we lost over 1,200 people, mr. speaker. and these vulnerables were not lnerables that were un-- vulnerabilities were not vulnerabilities that were unknown. times pick union

there were a series called years before n -- hurricane katrina. it accurately predicted the outcomes of a direct hit of a storm like hurricane katrina on our communities. we saw what happened. homes, businesses, monuments, schools, our history. our dreams. our hopes. our future. were all flooded. as a result of hurricane katrina. 10 years ago. mr. speaker, this wasn't a third world country. it was one of america's great cities that was under water. many people look back at hurricane katrina and they view the impact as being parochial. things that impacted louisiana and mississippi and alabama. not something that impacted the nation. but mr. speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. when the mississippi river was

shut down and all the ports associated with it across the gulf coast as a result of the devastating impact, the farmers in the midwest had no way of getting their crops out to market. there was no capacity within other transportation mediums to get these crops out. so therefore, the farmers in the midwest suffered as a result of hurricane katrina's impact on the gulf coast. mr. speaker, rail lines. louisiana is one of only two places in the united states where we were all six class 1 rail lines. in many case the rail lines and associated infrastructure was destroyed. therefore once again, severely impacting america's intermodal transportation system. the economy. one of the places that has this amazing -- has these amazing natural resources, the petrochemical industry, and many, many others, severely impacted. causing impacts not just again to the regional economy but to

the national economy. mr. speaker, one great example of that is gasoline prices. following hurricane katrina, we watched gasoline prices spike 75 cents a gallon. let me be clear, not in louisiana. nationwide. 75 cents a gallon in the national average price increase as a result of those 2005 hurricanes on the gulf coast. 75 cents a gallon. as i recall, i believe that translate into $450 million in higher consumer payments per day as a result of the impact those storms had, the 2005 hurricanes, hurricane katrina and hurricane rita, haden the gulf coast -- had on the gulf coast and had on really the nation. importantly, mr. speaker, the deficit. much of the recovery that was funded by the federal government, in fact the majority of it, was funded as a result --

funded by deficit spending. funded by deficit spending. this wasn't spending that was offset. this wasn't reserve dollars that the federal government had sitting there waiting for this unbelievable disaster. this was deficit spending and our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren will be paying for decades for this. i want to be clear, mr. speaker. this was preventable. which i'm going to talk about in a minute. but also the impact to the environment. here you see the u.s. army corps of engineers and you see the e.p.a. out there talking about the importance of wetlands and the importance of watters of the united states and writing all these extraordinary rules. to grant themselves more aggressive jurisdiction. larger jurisdiction over our private lands. yet, as a result of those storms alone in 2005, we lost over 200 square miles of coastal wetlands in the state of louisiana alone. mr. speaker, i'll say again a

lot of people looked at this, watched it on tv, and saw it as being a parochial problem, a problem of the gulf coast a problem of louisiana, mississippi, and alabama. mr. speaker, you could cut and paes that situation, you could paste virtually any other coastal city, any other coastal state in this nation and they potentially could face the same repercussion the same outcomes as we experienced in 2005 because this nation continues to have a reactive policy to disaster. and it's something we've got to change. we could have take then 100-plus billion dollars that congress appropriated following the 2005 hurricane to help recover, to help get these communities back on their feet across the gulf coast. we could have taken a fraction of those dollars and we could have invested them proactively and prevented it from happening. mr. speaker, any city on our coast could have experienced the same disaster we saw, and i are

-- and i remind you, just in 2012rks we saw hurricane sandy cause profound consequences in new york, new jersey and other communities on the east coast. i'll say it once again. disasters that were preventable. so this is something that we all need to be paying attention to. while in new orleans, while in south louisiana, mississippi, and in alabama. there were amazing stories of communities coming together, of people coming together, of resilient families coming together to ensure that while this did knock them down, they were getting back up again, they were going to recover. strong resolve from these communities all across the gulf coast. mr. speaker, one other thing that was truly amazing is watching the incredible outpouring of support, not just from the gulf coast but from all over this nation and countries around the world, committing to come help us recover. across the gulf coast. it was an amazing opportunity

for people to come together. to put down differences. and to all come together in support of the recovery of these communities. the recovery of these families. the recovery of these businessfuls. the recovery of the hopes and dreams of these communities across the gulf coast. mr. speaker, we're going to continue to see this play over and over again. we're going to continue to see these types of disasters, over and over again until we turn the policies around in the united states. until we see fundamental changes. but mr. speaker, i want to pivot back to the recovery. i want to pivot back to new orleans. i want to pivot back to st. bernard parish, st. tammany. i want to pivot back to lower jefferson parish. these communities in many cases were destroyed. everything was under water. everything. i'll say it again. the homes, the businesses, the schools.

the hope the dream the future. under water. 10 years ago. 10 years ago. unbelievable. i think that most people would have told you these communities aren't coming back. they can't come back. they've been so profoundly impacted they simply can't recover from this. but that's not what happened. as you just heard mr. scalise discuss, people came together. we now have an amazing progress, amazing recovery of our schools in south louisiana. amazing recovery in our economy. as a matter of fact, mr. speaker, we now have tens of billions of dollars in economic development projects on the horizon while in other areas, you're seeing people losing jobs, seeing businesses close. you're seeing small businesses shut down and a trend of more small businesses closing than opening across the nation. t in louisiana, mr. speaker, tens of billions of dollars in new economic development projects on the horizon.

as a matter of fact, we have the largest foreign investment in u.s. history committed to projects in south louisiana. we're seeing a manufacturing renaissance. and it's happening because our people are so resilient. because we've come back. because we've come together. and because we've plotted a path to the future. using the natural resources that louisiana is so blessed work the amazing maritime transportation system we have. and the amazing natural resources in regard to the inexpensive, readily available natural gas, oil, petrochemical industry, the rail line the internodal transportation facility. we have been able to accomplish a manufacturing renaissance, not in mexico, not in asia, but right here in the united states, in south louisiana. mr. speaker, in closing, i want to say, i pray that there is not another community, that there's not another city, that there's

not another state in this nation that has to experience, that has to go through the tragedy, the travesty we experienced in south louisiana. the loss of over 1,200 of our friends, our relatives, and our neighbors. to see the type of recovery, to see people come together, and to see us finally help to build a resilient protection system. resilient ecosystem. to ensure that the next storm isn't going to cause the same devastation to new orleans as we saw 10 years ago. i pray, mr. speaker, that that doesn't have to happen again. but it's only -- the only way we prevent it happening again is if people learn from the lessons of hurricane katrina. from hurricane rita. if they actually apply the lessons learned that we so painfully went through in south louisiana and mississippi and alabama. we apply those lessons around the united states, to make our communities more resilient, to

make our economy more resilient. to make our businesses more resilient. to make our families more resilient. and mr. speaker, most importantly, to ensure we can all accomplish the american dream. mr. speaker, i reserve -- i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2015, the chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana, mr. richmond, or 30 minutes. mr. richmond: thank you, mr. speaker. i want to just thank my colleagues from louisiana for also talking about the devastation that we received in hurricanes katrina and rita, which we call the sister hurricanes because they were only separated by a couple of days and what damage that hurricane katrina caused just a few days later, hurricane rita came right behind it and

exacerbated that damage. et me just hit on a few of the misperceptions of katrina. well, actually, since i've had a little time and i want to make sure that everyone involved has a chance to have time to speak on this, let me just, i will yield time to my good friend from mississippi, bennie thompson who at the time was chair of the homeland security committee, with made sure that some of the deficiencies in fema and some of the other places that caused us undue headaches during the rebuilding, that those headaches were relieved a little bit or eased a little bit because of the hard work of bennie thompson whose state also incurred some damage. so with that, mr. speaker, i will yield to the gentleman from bolton, mississippi, mr. bennie thompson.

mr. thompson: thank you very much, mr. speaker. i appreciate the gentleman from new orleans yielding time. rise for two reasons. one, to talk about what it is to e in the eye of a hurricane, and be without basic necessities for over 10 days because of the hurricane, and what it is that our government should do when those situations occur, both at the federal, state, and local level. so my comments, we'll talk a little bit about what happened in august of 2005. and how, in fact, so many people were impacted, and what we have

done as a government, what we didn't do, and we should do going forward. for the most part, as the gentleman from louisiana has id, both hurricanes rita and katrina, ravaged, texas, louisiana, mississippi, alabama and little bit of florida. ut i'll limit my comments to katrina. hurricane katrina there were over 1,800 people from texas to florida who died. 238 individuals died in my district. and what we had after that, we had over 2. million housing units damaged. d in my home state, almost 80e,000 were completely destroyed. now in southern mississippi,

that meant that over 60% of the single-family dwellings were ther destroyed or rendered uninhabitable and the statistics were worst for rental units. along the beautiful gulf coast, where we have the largest manmade beach in the united states, there were over 1 million people displaced. one month after the storm, 600,000 families that were still homeless and 114,000 were housed in fema trailers. mr. speaker, i don't have to tell you what happened to fema trailers. it was a mess. the government's response to the temporary housing situation could only be characterized as a mess.

we fixed it. but during the time, we put people in trailers that had basically been pieced together and shipped to the good people of the gulf coast. many of them had chinese drywall in those trailers that impacted the health of everybody we put in the trailer for temporary housing. obviously, we passed legislation to address some of it in terms of the health costs and other things and ultimately a lawsuit provided some relief to the families. what we've done in correcting that housing situation, we directed fema to not be the response and recovery agency,

but we want to understand that when people are trouble, not only do you come, but you come with the right resources to make sure you don't create and make life worse for them. so we now, after our katrina experience, we have a more anymoreble operation. we have far better individuals who are trained, so when it comes, we can respond. now the problem that i have goes back, mr. speaker, to the comments that the speaker on the other side made -- you know, when you are in a disaster, whether it's a hurricane or flood or tornado, the last thing you want is for somebody to say, who is going to pay for it. these are citizens of the united

states of america. the only thing we should say in your darkest hour in your time of need, your government will not let you down. i would hope that people understand that we are a can great nation because we take care of all of our people, especially when the chips are down and have no lower place to turn to. i would hope we would not talk about issues of deficit spending when people are being plucked off the roofs of their homes and being dislocated hundreds of miles from their residences because they can't get back into their nadse. what i also want to talk about is the fact since katrina, we have made sure that first

responders can communicate with each other. there are a number of stories talking about individuals who wanted to help who couldn't talk to each other. hopefully, we started fixing hat inopera built so those individuals, whether they are volunteer fire persons, law enforcement, whether at the state, local level, they can communicate with each other. when we are involved this any that is disaster federally declared, the constituents that need our help on't want us to get bogged down. and part of the help is making sure these individuals can communicate with each other. we had nonprofit organizations,

the red cross, was serially criticized because in their response to katrina because of a substantial number of the citizens impacted for low-income minority communities, we started gettings responses from we don't know what to do in those areas, but if you are part of a national preparedness system, you go and help. you don't try to qualify that help, because part of that agreement we have with the organization is you will do better and respond when other organizations don't have the capacity and we will work on the natural disasters in this country. sometimes they do a good job.

sometimes they don't. we have to make sure that every time they respond, they respond in a manner that's helping yone, regarding of socioeconomic status. i look forward to working on that. the other thing we have to work on is make sure that the monies hat are sent to the devastated areas don't get did he verted to other areas. in my home state of mississippi, our governor at the time diverted over $600 million that was directed to low and middle-income housing problems to a port expansion, which had nothing to do with housing but the flexibility. but we had a number of permit

who lost everything they had and didn't have any means to come back and the monies we sent back from washington to attempt to make those individuals whole and the re-introducing them to the community they were displaced, hat money has been sent to the mons t but don't take from congress to go from middle and low-income housing. the requirements nor that money still has not meant the satisfaction of not only the hud officials but members in the community of the so we should not take monies in time of emergency and find pet projects.

if those projects are worthy to be fund the and not emergency sources. i'm concerned we do that. i want to pay a special tribute to the mississippi center of justice who has done a wonderful job in mur suing the extended these funds are consistent are what the inat the present time of what those funds are and the national association for the advance mpt of colored people. they have provided witnesses and testimony and hearings in hearings as well as documentation about the questionable expenditures around hurricane katrina. as one of those individuals who experienced firsthand katrina,

up government has to stop and me our people in need. we have attempted to fix everything that we've identified that didn't work. e saw the interopera built problem. we provided whack vacation routes so they know ohio to lead whether they are handicapped in some form. we have created opportunities so pit won't be left alone. all of those things are very important because it goes to who we are as a people. how we treat the least of these in their most desperate hour, goes to the character of who we

are as a nation. so as we mark this 10-year anniversary of katrina, mr. speaker, i want us to understand it's still a work in progress that it doesn't matter whether u live in the house on the hill or you live in the house i a deade corner, that end. citizen.n american sit you ask be can be rest assured that your government will be johnny on the spot. s i step back from any microphone, i want to compliment the the gentleman from louisiana

for having this time, because we shid really understand how difficult how katrina has been for those individuals. but let me also take a point of personal privilege to talk about the good jobs that the men of the united states coast guard did in response to katrina also. they did a tremendous job in working and managing a locality of the recovery and response to katrina also. with that, i thank the gentleman me louisiana for yielding the

>> saturday is the anniversary of hurricane katrina hitting the gulf coast. it killed nearly 2000 from florida to texas. c-span sent a crew to the region to look at the recovery. we will show you scenes from st. bernard parish in louisiana, meeting.by a town hall clear as a portion of what you will see. >> it is a hard thing to believe the united states of america is spending one million dollars per week in iraq and here in new , we are united states being neglected. be -- with ourto president, our congressmen, our elected leaders to tell us we need help.

this is the united states of america. the young lady mentioned earlier we did rebuild japan after destroying japan. orleans.ew a specific coldrolled design. i love new orleans. >> residents reacting to a government response after hurricane katrina. meeting with victims starting at 8:00 eastern. tourll show you a c-span of a year after the hurricane struck. president obama will be in new orleans tomorrow meeting with residents to talk about the rebuilding 10 years later. that will happen tomorrow afternoon starting at 5:00 eastern.

friday, washington journal will spend the morning delving into the 10th anniversary of hurricane katrina. washington journal, friday morning starting at 7:00 eastern. this sunday night, brookings institution fellow talks about the u.s. counterinsurgency in afghanistan. >> the u.s. did achieve improvements. and is where i hesitate increasingly and terry get myself in question myself. i think it is a moment of control now. it is possible that five years

down the road we will be back in a new civil war in afghanistan. terrorizing the country. save havens for the taliban and isis,. 8:00 -- >>y night at sunday night at 8:00. visitsc-span cities tour literary sites across the nation. 2ery other weekend on c-span book tv and c-span 3 american history tv. daytour is on c-span each at 6:00 eastern.