Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this is an amendment that will provide some additional funding for technical assistance grants--disaster assistance--for the gulf coast. The President had a fairly robust package represented in this bill--I think $118 million. I hope I am correct about that. It was a good package of aid. I think it needs to be made more robust. In one section in particular, the President suggested that we spend $5 million along the gulf coast giving technical assistance to organizations and nonprofits to help these individuals, many who cannot afford, as you know, to hire a lawyer to process paperwork or hire an accountant to process the paperwork. After Katrina and Rita, we found it was very helpful to spend a little bit of money and give grants to some of these nonprofit groups that can work with large communities of people who are affected--the Vietnamese fishing community is a good example--so that each of the 100 fishermen don't have to go out--I am not trying to put lawyers out of business, and I don't want to get in trouble with them, but it is not necessary, and it can be a waste of money to hire lawyers and accountants to process what should be a simple claim. Even simple claims can be complicated in some of these situations. That is basically what this amendment does. I think it would provide more funding for claims across the gulf coast. I think we can use $5 million across Louisiana alone. My amendment would raise that number to $20 million.…”