Kent Conrad: “But also misplacing his argument as well. The simple reality is Florida did not get advance notice of Hurricane Andrew.…”

“But also misplacing his argument as well. The simple reality is Florida did not get advance notice of Hurricane Andrew. Nobody called up the Governor and said, when he would have had to make the decision under this bill to opt in and take the block grant that, ``Hey, Governor, 9 months from now you are going to be hit by a hurricane.'' You know, if the Governor would have looked back to the pattern back in 1987 to 1989, any Governor might have concluded it is a safe bet to go with a block grant. The problem is people do not have advance notice of an economic downturn. That is what happened here. They do not have advance notice of an actual disaster. That is what happened here. All the opt in and opt out would not have done them a bit of good in Florida. When these hungry people showed up, these were not people who have been on the welfare rolls for 10 years, these were not people who did not work. These are people who were hit by a natural disaster and needed food. The State of Florida would not have been able to provide it under a block grant. Is that what we want to do in this country? I think not.”