Almost simultaneously, one of Allbaugh's clients, Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group, announced that it had received two $100-million reconstruction contrac

A Perfect Time for Assessing Blame - Los Angeles Times: "September 12, 2005 | Michael Hiltzik: | Golden State
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Who will reap this bonanza? Not the people employed to remove wreckage, build houses and restore the infrastructure. While Congress was appropriating nearly $52 billion in relief and reconstruction programs last week, Bush quietly suspended the Davis-Bacon Act in the flood region. This law mandates that workers on federal construction projects be paid at least the prevailing local wage. As my colleagues Warren Vieth and Mary Curtius reported, the prevailing wage in the area is $9 an hour. Full-time work even at that scale would pay only $18,700 a year, or roughly the federal poverty level for a family of four.

The disaster entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are already saddling up. Recently spotted in the region is Joe M. Allbaugh, the former Bush campaign manager who as his first FEMA director advocated privatizing much of the agency. In time, Allbaugh left FEMA to establish a consultancy helping clients land reconstruction contracts in Iraq. His successor at the agency was his former college pal, the wretched Mr. Brown.

Allbaugh, whose firm represents a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., the ethics-challenged oilfield services company once run by Vice President Cheney, said he was down South merely to "coordinate" private sector relief. A spokeswoman assured reporters, "The first thing he says when he sits down with a client is, 'Don't hire me if you're looking for a government contract.' "

Almost simultaneously, one of Allbaugh's clients, Baton Rouge-based Shaw Group, announced that it had received two $100-million reconstruction contracts, one of them from FEMA.

On the face of things, Shaw seems qualified to do what it has been hired to do. So maybe Allbaugh didn't assist with the contracts. But my finger is cocked and ready for pointing, just the same.