Checks and Unlimited Balances

Buried in today's Washington Post story on President Bush's declaration that the federal budget ought to be able to absorb the cost of reconstructing the entire Gulf Coast region with just a few cuts here and there is this bit of news about the money that's already been budgeted for the effort:

But some congressional appropriations aides said the money is not being spent as quickly as they had expected. So far, about $9.8 billion has been allocated to Federal Emergency Management Agency relief contracts and federal projects. An additional $4 billion is tied up in contracts that have not been formalized.

That leaves more than $46 billion in unobligated funds, the documents indicate.

They actually expected FEMA would write $56 billion worth of fraud-free checks in about two weeks? I don't think even the contractors FEMA has hired to do the contracting could pull that off.