Grover Norquist is one of a "Gang Of Five" that redefined conservative politics in the United States and gave rise to neo-conservatism. He articulated the agenda of the neo-cons with a now infamous yet simple quote :

"Cutting the government in half in one generation is both an ambitious and reasonable goal," Norquist stated in May 2000. "If we work hard we will accomplish this and more by 2025. Then the conservative movement can set a new goal. I have a recommendation: To cut government in half again by 2050"

The problem with this strategy is rather obvious and David Michaelson, one of my co-bloggers at culturekitchen, pointed it out : When you drown the government, you drown America with it.

Neo-conservatism has been about maximizing profits for the corporations that keep alive the military-industrial complex --a term, by the way, coined by the Republican former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It's about making government so impotent, so incapable of taking care of it's duties to its citizenry that it obligates it then to farm out large portions of those duties. In effect, what neo-cons have always wanted was to have the closest thing to privatizing the government so corporations could make money out of their incompetency.

So now we're faced with yet another massive flooding in the United States. One that is indeed of Hurricane Katrina proportions.