by the Way . . .

You can see why President Bush prefers to use private enterprise whereever possible. After Katrina FEMA contracted for about $2.5 billion worth of trailers, and in just 6 months over 100,000 have been built and delivered, to FEMA that is. FEMA has managed to fill about half of the 135,000 requests for a free trailer, and thinks it has about 19,000 in holding areas. That doesn't quite add up, but it is certainly close enough for government work.

The problem is that local authorities have something to say about where the trailers go. The original idea was to build FEMAvilles, filling huge tracts of vacant land with extended trailer parks. The opposition of locals and would be residents was totally unexpected. Some people seem to want to put the trailers in their yard, next to their damaged house. Full disclosure, that is where I plan to put mine, if I ever get it. But then you run into those local regulations about electricity, sewers, and so on. You can't just stick one there to sleep in you know.

So think of what would have happened if the government had simply told suppliers that it would pay for any free trailers the suppliers could give away and get installed somewhere.