Jack Welch: Katrina's cost to the government not a problem

Jack Welch, GE's retired CEO who was known as "the king of shareholder value," was a guest of CNBC's "Squawk Box" this morning.

When asked about the damage the high cost of Katrina could do to the federal budget, Welch sanguinely predicted that the $200 billion, going into rebuilding projects and jobs, will flow through the economy, providing a stimulative effect, "just as the tax breaks did."

Wow. The heads of the military-industrial complex and their Republican subsidiary get it: federal spending. And it ain't such a bad thing -- not when it's flooded through the proper channels.

These are the "investor class" folks who mailed $300 checks with one hand while pouring unconscionable tax breaks on the filthy rich with the other. Middle class workers are now picking up the tab: over $1700 in additional state and local taxes and fees each year and a federal deficit spinning from a tropical depression into a full-flown hurricane.

Only ideology and blind greed (excuse the redundancy) keep those in the cradle of power from seeing that $200 billion spent on the country's infrastructure before a catastrophe like Katrina would have provided as much economic stimulation as it will after it's too late to help those who died and suffered because of government inaction, incompetence and willful ignorance.