US - the poor get left behind

Disturbed by those TV pictures from New Orleans ? - wondering why everyone seems to be poor and black ?. One commentator, Professor of African-American studies Mark Naison, puts his finger on the issue - "Hurricane Katrina reveals the fault lines of a region and a nation, rent by profound social divisions." Have those divisions been widened by Republican Tax cuts and spending on the Irag war ? - some Congressmen have made that link more from the New York Times...