Political Quotes

“It passed out of the Transportation Committee--I will say it again, the committee with disaster experience, with disaster jurisdiction--passed out of that committee unanimously. Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, what we all need to be focused on is the disaster victims. That is what we need to be doing. We need to be focused on the disaster victims and focused on getting assistance to them, not revictimizing the disaster victims through our own government inefficiency--and I am concerned that that is exactly what this bill does. Lastly, Mr. Speaker, let me give you a statistic to prove my point. We had a hearing a few months ago where we had the Economic Development Administration, through the Department of Commerce, come testify. They told us in the meeting that, within 1 year, the disaster funds that were given to them for disaster recovery activities, within 1 year, 79 percent of the money was out the door. Comparatively--to look at how HUD has handled this program, and this bill does nothing to fix it--comparatively, HUD has only given out 79 percent of the program after 6 years for 50 percent of the grants that were issued. They still have money sitting around for Hurricane Sandy. This is not helping disaster victims. I urge opposition. {time} 1645”