Emanuel Cleaver: “I want to first express appreciation to the ranking member and the maker of this motion for spending time down in New…”

“I want to first express appreciation to the ranking member and the maker of this motion for spending time down in New Orleans with the committee at Dillard University and then going over into Mississippi. I think it was very important for the people of Mississippi to see Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle coming into that devastated region, expressing concern and interested in putting forth legislation to help them out of something that has devastated their lives, yet they are not responsible for. I have got to oppose the gentleman from Texas' amendment. Let me just say that there are good and decent people who are poor. That is about the only thing good I can say about poverty. I know it personally. We are on a first-name basis. I grew up with poverty. I know it well. And so I had a clear picture of what happened after Katrina and Rita. Only one in six New Orleanians owns an automobile. One in six. That means that this city is a city of poverty. And when you think about the individuals at the Dome begging for help, probably 95 to 98 percent of them had no automobiles. My son was in New Orleans when the flood hit, a student at Dillard University. He had an automobile, and even with an automobile, he had difficulty getting out of New Orleans, ended up spending the night on a Wal-Mart parking lot. But he had a car, and he was able to get out. This is a very, very poor city.”