Back to Work
Congress returns to work on Tuesday, and what was a full plate has just had more piled onto it with the horrendous tragedy hitting the Gulf Coast this week.
Apparently Senate Majority Leader Frist has not been paying attention. He has announced that the first bit of business to be introduced is the repeal of the Estate Tax (or, "The Death Tax," as conservatives like to call it).
Thousands of lives have been lost, millions of jobs have been lost for the foreseeable future, a city has been all but destroyed, and the good doctor is keen on saving the wealthiest of Americans a few more dollars.
Hopefully the rage and disgust most rational Americans feel at the seriously wanting federal response to this emergency will somehow seep into the sanctified wells of the Senate and the House. Those questions I mentioned in yesterday's post need to be answered.
Apparently some in Congress share my interest in getting answers. The New York Times reports that calls for hearings into why the federal response was so slow and so inept have issued:
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - Members of Congress from both parties acknowledged on Friday that the federal response to Hurricane Katrina had fallen far short and promised hearings into what had gone wrong.
Before the House action, members of the Congressional Black Caucus strongly criticized the federal response to the hurricane, saying the government had abandoned many poor and frail victims, most of them members of minorities.
"Shame, shame on America," said Representative Diane Watson, Democrat of California. "We were put to the test, and we have failed."
Republican lawmakers were also critical, with Representative Jim McCrery of Louisiana choking up during a news conference.
"You might note a bit of frustration in my face and in my voice," said Mr. McCrery, whose district in the northwest part of the state was spared by the storm but is struggling to deal with evacuees. "I will tell you: It is there. I am frustrated in my attempts to deal with a wide array of bureaucracy in trying to get assets on the ground."
Several lawmakers said the halting response to the storm suggested that the nation was unprepared for a large-scale terrorist attack as well as another natural disaster.[Emphasis added]
The sheer incompetence of the response should not have surprised us, given this maladministration's track record, but it did. Such negligence, causing so much death and so much suffering, surely rises to the criminal. I hope the hearings are called, and I hope they are honest. With no political whitewash or spin, we might actually learn something. And then, perhaps we can do something about it.
Apparently Senate Majority Leader Frist has not been paying attention. He has announced that the first bit of business to be introduced is the repeal of the Estate Tax (or, "The Death Tax," as conservatives like to call it).
Thousands of lives have been lost, millions of jobs have been lost for the foreseeable future, a city has been all but destroyed, and the good doctor is keen on saving the wealthiest of Americans a few more dollars.
Hopefully the rage and disgust most rational Americans feel at the seriously wanting federal response to this emergency will somehow seep into the sanctified wells of the Senate and the House. Those questions I mentioned in yesterday's post need to be answered.
Apparently some in Congress share my interest in getting answers. The New York Times reports that calls for hearings into why the federal response was so slow and so inept have issued:
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - Members of Congress from both parties acknowledged on Friday that the federal response to Hurricane Katrina had fallen far short and promised hearings into what had gone wrong.
Before the House action, members of the Congressional Black Caucus strongly criticized the federal response to the hurricane, saying the government had abandoned many poor and frail victims, most of them members of minorities.
"Shame, shame on America," said Representative Diane Watson, Democrat of California. "We were put to the test, and we have failed."
Republican lawmakers were also critical, with Representative Jim McCrery of Louisiana choking up during a news conference.
"You might note a bit of frustration in my face and in my voice," said Mr. McCrery, whose district in the northwest part of the state was spared by the storm but is struggling to deal with evacuees. "I will tell you: It is there. I am frustrated in my attempts to deal with a wide array of bureaucracy in trying to get assets on the ground."
Several lawmakers said the halting response to the storm suggested that the nation was unprepared for a large-scale terrorist attack as well as another natural disaster.[Emphasis added]
The sheer incompetence of the response should not have surprised us, given this maladministration's track record, but it did. Such negligence, causing so much death and so much suffering, surely rises to the criminal. I hope the hearings are called, and I hope they are honest. With no political whitewash or spin, we might actually learn something. And then, perhaps we can do something about it.
posted by Diane at 4:54 AM
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