Mississippi Has a Plan

And they can now tap into their over-represented share of the community development block grants:

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson today announced he is approving a $3.4 billion plan to help thousands of Mississippi homeowners to recover from Hurricane Katrina.

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Today's approval means thousands of qualified homeowners in Mississippi can receive up to $150,000 to help them recover from Hurricane Katrina, according to HUD's Web site.

We have a plan, too. But it relies on $4.2 billion coming from a bill currently in the Senate.

At first, it looked like Congress didn’t want to give the new $4.2 billion dedicated to CDBG funding only to Louisiana. But things are looking up, as in up $1 billion:

By adding $1 billion to the measure Tuesday, the Senate committee included enough money for the other states, restoring the $4.2 billion for Louisiana, officials said.

“I’m very happy with it,” said Landrieu, who sits on the committee. “It provides some money for Texas and Mississippi, so it doesn’t come out of our $4.2 billion.”

While we are waiting for approval of that $4.2 billion, it sure would be nice to have an interim plan that could start using some of the $6.2 billion we already have committed to Louisiana. And, it would probably be a good idea to have a backup plan in case we don’t get all $4.2 billion [EDIT] or not enough of the $5.2 billion in the new version of the bill.

But that's not likely, which is unfortunate, because we all know what happens while we make plans.

Hurricane season.