"Just the fact that a hurricane disaster like this would open the door for a huge new government program is a worry," maintains Alex Van Rensselaer, a retired entrepreneur living in Hobe Sound, Fla., who founded Hay Day, a Connecticut chain of gourmet markets. "So many conservative groups are trying to reduce the size of government and exposure to government programs everywhere, and this is just the opposite."

Indeed, many of those devastated by the worst storm season on record are hoping for a New Deal of sorts to help them recover. Reconstruction costs from Katrina alone have been estimated at $250 billion, and much of that will no doubt be borne by wealthy taxpayers. "Obviously, any huge new spending like this is going to put more pressure on Congress to resist the permanent Bush tax cuts that we’re looking for–pressure to justify increased taxes," Van Rensselaer says. "And our side is constantly looking for ways to lower taxes to drive the economy–and this is just exactly where we don’t want to be."

Nearly 75 years after entering the American political lexicon, the term "New Deal" still stirs many in top tax brackets to shudder reflexively. In the current budgetary climate, where the expenses of the Iraq war coupled with substantial tax cuts have resulted in record-breaking budget deficits, the fear of affluent taxpayers that lawmakers may impose higher taxes on the wealthy, much as they did in the 1930s, may be justified.

"Seventy-plus-billion dollars going to just three states is one of the largest transfers from the federal government to any set of states in the postwar era," observes Robert Litan, a senior fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution.

But even if the burden of funding reconstruction efforts is distributed among affluent, lower- and middle-class taxpayers in the same proportions as tax levies have been in recent years, it would still be borne disproportionately by the wealthy. Those in the highest tax bracket accounted for 27 percent of individual income tax revenues in 2001 and 2002 (the latest year for which data is available), according to IRS figures. In 2002, only five out of every 100,000 filers reported adjusted gross income of more than $10 million; that group accounted for more than 4 percent of all individual income tax revenues. Only 15 out of every 100,000 filers reported AGI over $5 million that year, but they accounted for 6.6 percent of all individual tax revenues.

Some worry that recent relief efforts–including the federal response to the events of 9/11–have set a dangerous funding precedent that will be financially impossible to maintain when future disasters strike. In fact, some have referred to recent governmental disaster relief as the "New New Deal," and see it as an open-ended wealth redistribution scheme. "There’s going to be a reckoning of what the real role of the federal government should be in response to disasters," says Stephen Slivinski, director of budget studies with the Cato Institute in Washington. "It’s certainly very expensive, and it also sends the signal to any local government: If you are unlucky enough to be hit by a storm that destroys infrastructure, the federal government will swoop in."