Kendrick Meek: “after seeing the heart-wrenching images of so many of our fellow Americans in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama who…”

“after seeing the heart-wrenching images of so many of our fellow Americans in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama who have lost everything and are unfed, thirsty, suffering from oppressive heat in unsanitary conditions and waiting in desperation for help from their government, this bill is a truly no-brainer. Every American is united in the heart-felt desire to help the hundreds of thousands who are literally crying out for assistance. $10.5 billion is not nearly enough to get the job done, even in the short term. So far, judging from the horrible suffering of thousands of people that Americans see every night on their television screens, our government has not been handling this crisis very well. I hope that this money will have some impact in finally getting some aid to the needy. Before Katrina, who among us would have thought that Americans would be begging for food and water and become refugees in our own country? Yet that is exactly what has been happening for days in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Thousands of these people are within blocks of aid, but for days no aid has been provided to them. However, it is not enough to simply vote for funding bills. We have to make sure that the relief money we are appropriating today and that we will be appropriating in the weeks, months and years ahead actually gets to the victims, and is not skimmed off by fast-buck artists and unscrupulous contractors.…”