Long before Katrina, the welfare state failed New Orleans's poor.

Brendan Miniter, WSJ:

"If LBJ had won his war on poverty, Ninth Ward residents would have had the means to drive themselves out of New Orleans."

"Instead, after decades and billions of tax dollars have been poured into big government programs, one out of four people in the Big Easy were still poor. That is an
indictment of the welfare state and all its
antipoverty programs."

"It's time to rethink how we, as a society, combat poverty. Are we going to try another big-government program and expect better results this time?"

"Or are we now going to realize that ownership is the most likely path to the middle class?"

"School vouchers can help poor parents take ownership of their children's education and finally break the grip teachers unions have on the public schools. Health savings accounts and private accounts for Medicaid and Social Security will give those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder the skills as well as the assets necessary to climb higher."

"In late August the levees broke in New Orleans. But the welfare state had left the poor stuck in the mud long before that. "

Read the entire column. After failure of the welfare state, the time has come for Bush's "ownership society".