Kit Bond: “I have a message that is unfortunately very untimely for the people of my State. I hope that I can call the attention of…”

“I have a message that is unfortunately very untimely for the people of my State. I hope that I can call the attention of my colleagues to it. Yesterday, the administration proudly claimed that it cut through red tape and bureaucracy to get the Santa Monica Freeway open 22 months ahead of schedule. We congratulate the bureaucracy. We are glad for the people of Santa Monica, and we are delighted to hear that this is a new way of reinventing Government. Unfortunately, for people that live in the valleys of the State of Missouri along the river bottoms, Government has been reinvented in the wrong way. I have told this body several times that if the administration continues to delay the replacement of levees blown out in the disastrous floods of 1993, rising waters in 1994 are going to bring havoc, disruption, and loss to our State, our families, our businesses, and our communities. The long-predicted rains have come; they hit heavily over this weekend. Serious flooding has occurred. I ask how long we are going to continue seeing the Corps of Engineers contradict, delay, and dawdle through the responsibility of repairing the levees.”