Joe Scarborough: “this past weekend and over the past 3 or 4 weeks we have been hearing a lot on television about flood relief and the…”

“this past weekend and over the past 3 or 4 weeks we have been hearing a lot on television about flood relief and the politization of that process, and we have been hearing about how flood victims got caught in the middle of a political gambit and they have actually been upset and injured by politics as usual in Washington, DC. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to come to the floor today because I have been looking through some newspapers across the country to see what they were doing outside the beltway and I wanted to check into some of the charges that actually what happened on this flood relief bill actually did affect flood victims, because we get in Washington and one hears different things. In fact, I heard the Vice President last week go before a press conference and say the following, and this is from the Philadelphia Inquirer dated last week: Vice President Gore accused the Republicans of issuing an ultimatum. Quote: ``They are saying to the American people, we want to make it clear that we will hurt you unless these provisions are accepted.'' The charge is almost frantic, that actually there were people in this Chamber that wanted to hurt Americans if they did not go along with their own political agenda.”