The only change would be transferring the legal authority of the Immigration and Naturalization Services from the Justice Department to the Homeland Security Department,

The only entity in the United States that has the personnel, the equipment, the training and the logistical capacity to lend support to the National Guard and other state entities in an emergency of this scale is the Department of Defense.

The percentage is reduced each year, until after five years the fire department is able to continue on with paid staffing with it's own funding. At a time when volunteer fire departments across the nation are struggling to obtain new volunteers, this cut really hurts. It means fire departments will have to look to the public for even more support.

The person determined to achieve maximum success learns the principle that progress is made one step at a time. A house is built one brick at a time. Football games are won a play at a time. A department store grows bigger one customer at a time. Every big accomplishment is a series of little accomplishments.

The positive message is that if you strip out the numbers that the Labor Department says are the result of the hurricane, the underlying figures are still pretty decent. That shows that there was some cushion in the economy before Katrina hit.