According to CNN, the US House is convening this morning to pass the emergency funding measure. Speaker Dennis Hastert is "hoping" to be there, but has a fund raiser in Indiana this morning, so he's unsure if he'll make it. Good to see these guys have their priorities straight.
you're damn right about that. hastert must agree with ivins about the importance of politics. i disagree with them both, now is no time for politics, action is eloquence.
Agreed. The Senate apparently already converged and passed the measure from what I gathered. Many House members are not planning to show up, for some bizarre reason. I guess their vacations are too important.
I agree. Look, most of us who live far away from NO cannot help directly. It takes us like 20 seconds to make a Paypal donation to the charity of our choice and maybe an hour, at most, to donate blood or drop off clothing at the local Red Cross. It is not as if all this discussion is preventing us from doing what we can to help. If you want to talk about b****ing, listen to what the local and state officials are saying. They are openly CALLING OUT FEMA and saying the federal response has been f**king inadequate. If the country can be outraged at removing some woman's feeding tubes, and that outrage was enough to force an emergency session of Congress, then damn it, let's get freaking crazy on behalf of those poor people in NO.
Why is it the responsibilty of the federal government to shore up levies in LA? Couldn't the the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana do something about their own local problems? Hell, based on the time passed since the cuts were made, there likely has not been any reduction in the funds commited to work on the levies before the storm. It isn't like everyone comes and asks Bush for money the day they are going to spend it. Any money that would have gone into working on the levies this year would have been budgeted last year. Budget cuts less than 3 months ago should not have any effect at this point. It looks bad politically that Bush cut flood programs just before a flood, but it makes no practical difference.
Yes, it looks bad and the 2005 cuts probably wouldn't have made an immediate impact. But it is clear where his priorities are and he chose to spend more money in Iraq than assist domestic security. I don't have an immediate link for you but what I understand is that Clinton implemented new programs to assist NOLA. When Bush got into office, he cut all those programs in 2001. So lost funding since 2001 may have made some difference.
Sorry I haven't gotten back to your comment sooner and I hope you see this response. You're right and my response was off of the cuff and a reaction to some of the responses that I got while working a phone bank raising money for the Red Cross. I heard a few people complain about the response and the looter saying they didn't see a reason for them to help out when the gov. is doing a poor job and the people of NO don't deserve help because they're just taking advantage to loot. I know this isn't a widespread view but there are people who have that view and its frustrating to deal with it.
