Unlikely Representative Brings Louisiana Recovery Plan To the Forefront

"Into the void of the post-Katrina policy landscape, littered with half-ruined proposals, crumbling prescriptions and washed-out initiatives, an obscure and very conservative congressman has stepped in with the ultimate big government solution.

Representative Richard H. Baker, a Republican from suburban Baton Rouge who derides Democrats for not being sufficiently free-market, is the unlikely champion of a housing recovery plan that would make the federal government the biggest landowner in New Orleans - for a while, at least. Mr. Baker's proposed Louisiana Recovery Corporation would spend as much as $80 billion to pay off lenders, restore public works, buy huge ruined chunks of the city, clean them up and then sell them back to developers."

Mr. Baker's ideological opposite in the Louisiana Congressional delegation, William J. Jefferson, a New Orleans Democrat, said passage of the bill was important.

"Without it," he said, "homeowners have very little chance of realizing any of the equity they've lost."

Thanks to Mike Lydon