Sean Patrick Maloney: “It is a shame we will not have the opportunity to vote on the Sweeney amendment because it would help address New York's…”

“It is a shame we will not have the opportunity to vote on the Sweeney amendment because it would help address New York's tremendous unmet needs. We need all the Federal aid we were promised, not next year, not next month, not tomorrow. We need it yesterday. None of the $20 billion we need is going under a mattress. No one doubts that FEMA will pay to clear up the site at the World Trade Center. What is in doubt are the costs that do not neatly fall in the Federal guidebook for disaster relief; like money for hospitals that canceled elective surgery so they could treat victims; like costs to utilities to rewire Lower Manhattan; like many different kinds of costs of education. We have tremendous unmet needs and unpaid bills.”