I am usually horrified by the actions of any federal appointee that is put in charge of a single initiative. Perhaps it’s the horrid record run up by our “experts”: the threats to privacy advocated by Bush’s health information czar, the ineffectiveness of the cybersecurity czars, the long line of failures by one drug czar after another.

Besides, I’ve not seen a czar come up with anything besides new and creative ways to spend taxpayer money.

But in the case of New Orleans, the federal monies have already been allocated so there’s nothing to do except see that they aren’t misspent. Instead, we are leaving the spending in the hands of politicians from the most corrupt city in America — who are evidently also the most incompetent:

The city’s official blueprint for redevelopment after Hurricane Katrina, to be released on Wednesday, will recommend that residents be allowed to return and rebuild anywhere they like, no matter how damaged or vulnerable the neighborhood, according to several members of the mayor’s rebuilding commission.

Worse yet, areas that don’t attract a “critical mass of residents” will be allowed to return to marshland and the people that have rebuilt there (at considerable taxpayer expense, no doubt) will be “forced to leave”.

Though such a requirement would be emotionally wrenching, the commission will propose a buyout program to compensate those people at the market price before Hurricane Katrina, but it is not clear whether there will be federal financing for such a program.

Do you have any doubts as to where the financing will come from? And how much of the money will be diverted into certain pockets along the way?

When it comes to new and creative ways to spend our money I have to give first prize to those who run New Orleans.

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Reconstruction Czar.