Lloyd Bentsen: “I asked the Committee on Rules for a rather simple amendment that would have allowed for the House to vote on whether or…”

“I asked the Committee on Rules for a rather simple amendment that would have allowed for the House to vote on whether or not to strike the rescission in the supplemental of $389 million from the FEMA disaster account. Now, the distinguished chairman of the committee just spoke, and I know he worked very hard on putting this bill together, and he talked about the budgetary constraints. I appreciate that fact, but we have to remember some of the budgetary constraints in this bill are self-imposed by the committee because the committee added $273 million in spending in the defense accounts that was not requested by the administration. It added $469 million in nondefense accounts that was not requested by the administration, and then it found the impetus to declare $388 million in spending emergency but in order to meet the constraints it took the money that the Congress had appropriated and been signed into law for emergency relief and rescinded it and then it says, well, that money is not needed; we are not going to need it. If we need it, we will get it later. But that is not a real savings. Mathematically, you know we are going to spend that money. But the fact is, FEMA does not have sufficient money. The storm in Harris County is now estimated to cost $4 billion.”