As Romney tours the storm damage, it’s worth notingthat government-funded levees prevented far greater damage from occurring in New Orleans, seven years after the city was battered (and the levees failed) during Hurricane Katrina:
Isaac’s whistling winds lashed this city and the storm dumped nearly a foot of rain on its desolate streets, but the system of levee pumps, walls and gates appeared to withstand one of the stiffest challenges yet…Isaac arrived seven years after Hurricane Katrina and passed slightly to the west of New Orleans, where the city’s fortified levee system easily handled the assault.
Meanwhile, Romney’s economic plan — which would require a nearly 30 percent reduction in all discretionary spending — would make America’s already precarious infrastructure situation worse. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the U.S. needs $2.2 trillion in investments to bring its infrastructure into adequate shape, including $100 billion to repair levees:
MORE: How Romney’s Economic Plan Would Gut Infrastructure Investments (Like Levees) | ThinkProgress.