John Spratt: “Let me make two points before I yield again. First of all, we all believe that disaster relief should be a program of…”

“Let me make two points before I yield again. First of all, we all believe that disaster relief should be a program of shared sacrifice. We should all want to pitch in and help the people of New Orleans and Bay St. Louis and the gulf coast. No question about it. But when you spread that burden across our whole country, and that is the way we should do it, it should be spread equitably and evenly and fairly. The second problem we have with what is being proposed and pushed right now, is that the costs would not come down evenly and equitably, but they would come down heavily on, in many cases, those least able to bear the burden. We do not think that is the way it should be done. We are not saying it should not be paid for in some respect or stretched out over time. We are simply saying, when and if it is paid for it ought to be equitably distributed. Let me make one other final point by saying that if you look at our charts here you will see that in the year 2015, way down here in the corner of this particular chart, the deficit will be $640 billion. That does not assume anything for Hurricane Katrina because it had not happened when these numbers were run. If you factor Hurricane Katrina in at today's level expenditure in that year the deficit will be about $645 billion. So the problem in the outyears here is not Hurricane Katrina.…”