Discussing the Aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita

DISCUSSING THE AFTERMATH OF HURRICANES KATRINA AND RITA -- (House of Representatives - September 29, 2005)

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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed listening to my colleague from Iowa, and we share a lot of things in common, being able to know our own minds and speak them. I think they are in the face sometimes of running against the flow, but I think that is what the people of our respective States sent us here for, and so I think that that is what we should be doing.

I have appreciated the comments that you have made. I heard a little bit from my classmate, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe), and his comments that he was making, too, and I think that all of us owe a great debt to the people from our districts who have stepped up and helped in so many ways.

I know that the people of the 5th Congressional District of North Carolina, my district, have been extremely generous with their time and money in helping with the hurricane relief. They, and all the other people, have exemplified what a wonderful country we live in and how volunteers do step up when we need them to.

Our government can do very, very many great things, and our government does do many great things. We have a lot of fabulous people who work for the Federal Government and the State and local governments, too; but there are things that we are not equipped to do.

I, like you and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe), have been extremely saddened by the devastation that we have seen inflicted by these hurricanes. They are not the greatest disasters necessarily that have hit our country, but they have certainly been the greatest ones that have come in a long time.

I think that what our military and the Federal agencies have done has been positive, but I think that we have to do more at the State level and the local level; and I think we have to urge people to do more through the volunteer organizations, as you talked about.

I supported $10 billion in aid that we gave for this relief. I have supported every other bill that has come through except the one big omnibus bill that we had, the $52 billion bill.

We have done a lot to provide relief measures, tax relief measures for people, for college students, for workers and worker training programs. But my concern is that we spend the money that we spend here from the Federal level wisely. As a State Senator, I thought we should spend our government's money wisely, but we have to be extremely careful that we do not let our hearts override our heads. If I am spending my own money, it is okay if I let my heart dictate. But if I am spending other people's money, I think I have to make sure that I am voting with my head and not with my heart.

One of the concerns that I have is that we have oversight in the money that is being spent on the hurricane relief. We have to have oversight and accountability or else we will waste the precious money that we have. Every dollar wasted is a dollar not going to help some family in need or some agency in need. And I think that it is shameful that members of the minority party have often exploited the suffering and loss of life in this tragedy to score political points. We do not need to be dealing with partisan issues here. We need to work together to help the people of the gulf coast. But we need to do it in the most effective and fiscally responsible way possible.

I supported the select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation For and Response to Hurricane Katrina. I think that that is the way we should be operating. We are going to have a full investigation, as the gentleman mentioned, and the report is going to come out on February 15. All the facts have to come out so that we can take steps on the Federal, State and local level to make sure that we do not have a debacle like we had there before. I think it is very important we examine the role of the Federal Government in disaster relief.

I am really proud to be a member of the Committee on Government Reform, and I appreciate my colleague from Iowa mentioning the Committee on Government Reform and the potential role it has to play in looking at this. What I hope is that the Committee on Government Reform is going to review many, many government programs and how they operate, and that this will be a catalyst for us to see what we are doing, particularly with rules and regulations as they apply to what is happening in the recovery.

But as we do that, it seems to me we should expand the way we look at rules and regulations. Are they doing what we need them to do? Not only what went wrong with Hurricane Katrina, but what can we do to streamline the way we operate? I want measured, common sense solutions to what we have seen as a result of the hurricane, but I want common sense solutions to all of the problems that we face in this country, and I think our citizens are saying that.

I know when I am at home, people are saying please do not just throw money at this problem. Let us use this as an opportunity to make things better in the future, not just put a Band-Aid on the issues, but make sure we do not lose the opportunity to find out what went wrong, fix that, and then go even further. And let us reduce the role of the Federal Government, because as my colleague said, in many cases just some good common sense on the part of average citizens can solve a lot of problems and keep us from wasting a lot of money in trying to solve a problem.

So I commend the gentleman for having this special order tonight, for bringing this to our colleagues' attention. We need to keep talking about it. We need to keep talking about it in a positive way, not a negative way. We need to say let us look for solutions, let us solve the problems, and let us make the gulf coast a better place to live. Let us make our entire country a better place to live by reducing the role of the Federal Government in our lives.

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