Posted on 09/07/2005 9:41:15 AM PDT by Pokey78
WASHINGTON — The top Senate Democrat today called for an investigation into the way the government dealt with Hurricane Katrina, including whether President Bush's Texas vacation interfered with the response. Republican chairmen pledged to focus on recovery now and investigate later.
In a letter to the Senate's Homeland Security Committee chairwoman, Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada pressed for a wide-ranging investigation and answers to several questions, including: "How much time did the president spend dealing with this emerging crisis while he was on vacation? Did the fact that he was outside of Washington, D.C., have any effect on the federal government's response?"
The letter was obtained by the Associated Press.
Other Democrats also called for investigations and clamored for President Bush to fire Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency that has been widely vilified for its reaction to the hurricane and the deadly aftermath.
Separately, Bush was asking Congress for as much as $50 billion in immediate aid for the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe, and the White House indicated more money eventually would be needed.
In the first government estimate of Katrina's economic impact, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office said the damage seemed likely to reduce employment by 400,000 in coming months and to trim economic growth by as much as a full percentage point in the second half of the year. The impact should be temporary, with gasoline prices declining and consumer spending rebounding, said the assessment obtained by The Associated Press.
At the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the administration was acting quickly on an emergency supplemental measure for Katrina efforts because a $10.5 billion down payment approved last week "is being spent more quickly than we even anticipated."
Administration officials said the second request could be close to $50 billion and would be sent to Capitol Hill later Wednesday. Bush is expected to return to the region, but the White House would not say when. Separately, first lady Laura Bush planned to travel to Mississippi on Thursday, the same day Vice President Dick Cheney heads to the Gulf states.
Bush was chairing a meeting to hear an update from Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt and others about getting government benefits, such as food stamps, health care and unemployment benefits, to hurricane victims.
Buffeted by criticism of the Republican administration, GOP Senate chairmen stood in unison and announced that Congress first would open hearings on how to help the Gulf Coast recover from the disaster, and then later examine the response.
"Our role in the United States Senate will be, yes, to investigate and provide appropriate oversight, but also to lower barriers for the recovery and the rebuilding and the economic growth of the Gulf states," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Susan Collins, the senator whom Reid's letter was addressed to, said her panel would open hearings on "what should we be doing right now." Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said that as chairman of the energy and water subcommittee, he could convene a panel this week to provide the Army Corps of Engineers with the money it needs to help the region recover.
But he recommended that the White House assign another agency, perhaps the Office of Management and Budget, to coordinate Congress' Katrina hearings and recovery efforts.
"We can have all the hearings and ideas we want, but we're going to be running in each other's way pretty soon, as are the Cabinet members," Domenici said.
The House today was expected to pass two Katrina-related bills: One would allow the secretary of education to waive the current rule that recipients of Pell Grants for low-income students must repay those grants when they are forced to withdraw from classes due to natural disasters.
The other would allow circuit, district and bankruptcy courts to conduct special sessions outside their geographic boundaries when they are unable to meet because of emergency conditions.
Even as they called for investigations of the government's response, several Democratic senators said it was already clear that Brown, the FEMA director, should go.
Bush should have appointed a director with more experience, said Hillary Rodham Clinton on CBS' "The Early Show."
Clinton, who also appeared on ABC and NBC Wednesday, urged the appointment of an independent investigative panel along the lines of the Sept. 11 commission.
She bristled when asked about Republican accusations that she was trying to capitalize on a natural disaster to help her political career.
"You know, the questions that have been raised about the competence and the effectiveness of this administration certainly are not limited to what's happened with Katrina," she said on NBC's "Today." "And every time anyone raises any kind of legitimate criticism and asks questions, they're attacked."
Reid said in his letter that Collins' panel should pursue answers to several questions. Among them, why Bush and administration officials said no one anticipated the breach of the levees despite public studies and warnings, whether budget cuts thwarted the Army Corps of Engineers and whether a sufficient number of troops were dispatched promptly. Reid also asked whether FEMA was hurt because it was stripped of Cabinet-level status and folded into the Homeland Security Department.
"It appears that FEMA suffered from serious systemic failures in virtually every aspect of its response to Katrina," Reid wrote.
Where was CONGRESS? ON VACATION! Where was US Rep Harold Ford JUNIOR when the vote for the $10.5 Billion in assistance to the storm victims was being taken......ON VACATION!
Now the Dems are screaming about the RED TAPE....They need to point their fingers right back at themselves....THEY put those RED TAPE RULES IN PLACE in the first place!
Puting FEMA or NG tropps inside the expected storm area would have put them and their supplies in danger of being destroyed. They had to be positioned outside the expected storm zone to be able to help the storm victims.
This is just goofy.
I am going to proudly post here...without reading the article, because I've heard it all before. Same song, three hundred and fifty-second verse.
Hey, Senator Reid...was your predictable response to the response delayed because of your vacation?
***
Anyone who asks questions this foolish ought to be tarred and feathered.
Come to think of it, Reid would look real good with feathers.
Exactly! GW and the whole US Army needed to be in downtown New Orleans while Katrina was 5 miles offshore. That is the only way that the leftists (Liberal Democrats) in this country will be close to satisfied.
I was being scarcastic in my post, go to moveon.org for folks posting things like that for real
Dingy Harry spends his time off talking to imaginary skateboarding kids in Searchlight, NV.
Just when you think they can't sink any lower, they do.
And they say dingy Harry is the brightest bulb to ever come out of Searchlight NV. Maybe so, that's he's still one dim bulb on the Democrap's tree.
LOL, copy and paste! You're welcome to copy and paste my upside-down Spanish exclamation mark.
The damocrats are eager to use a national disaster for their own partisan political purpose. May they perish.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.