The Road to Privatization...

The recovery effort for hurricane Katrina has been dominated by a neoliberal ideology that promotes privatization over all. One example of this is now reaching a head with the case of ICF, a private management firm hired to oversee the state's Road Home program - a multi-billion dollar grant system that will dish out money to homeowners across the parts of the state hit by the hurricane and flood.

But in an indication that privatization and the larger neoliberal creed is failure, legislators and homeowners are blasting ICF for its incompetence and unaccountability. Pro-privatizers claim that by contracting out programs and government services a higher level of work is done at a cheaper price. With ICF in Louisiana neither is panning out to be true.

Today's Times Picayune reports on the details.


The failure of the ICF Road Home Program should be an ominous foreshadowing for many of the other services and government functions that have been privatized fully or partially in the aftermath of Katrina. Everything from schools and healthcare to public housing is on the chopping block. The neoliberal opportunists would like to gobble it all up and convert it to profits on the market. ICF should be a warning to the state's political leaders - more disasters are coming.