Nation Hears Bush With Skepticism, Hope

In a Houston shelter lined with cots, in a Baton Rouge church hall, and around television sets across the country, Americans listened Thursday night to President Bush promise a New Deal-scale rebuilding of the Gulf Coast — and responded with a wary mix of hope and doubt.

Some heard a president finally accepting responsibility. "He said the words," said a retired schoolteacher evacuated from the Lower Ninth Ward. "Now I want to see the money come down to the streets, not just to the contractors."

Others heard a speech heavy on promises and light on price tags. Bush proposed tax breaks, job accounts and homesteading for the region but did not say what it would cost; congressional aides have put the figure near $200 billion.

"Every speech sounds good in a disaster," said a firefighter in Biloxi, Miss., who watched at his station between cleanup shifts. "What matters is the second month, when the cameras leave."

Conservative reaction was cooler still. Several Republican lawmakers warned that rebuilding on a scale of the New Deal without corresponding cuts would worsen record deficits. "The president's heart is in the right place," one House Republican said, "but compassion is not an appropriation."

Democrats, while welcoming the acknowledgment of poverty and race, questioned whether tax incentives and enterprise zones can rebuild whole neighborhoods. "You cannot homestead your way home when you have no credit and no job," said a senior House Democrat.

Polls taken since the storm show the public roughly split on Bush's handling of Katrina, with approval of his overall job performance at the lowest point of his presidency.

For evacuees, the politics mattered less than the logistics. "Just tell me where I sign up for the job program," said a displaced welder from Chalmette, La., now sleeping on his sister's floor in Jackson, Miss. "I'll take care of the rest."