Katrina

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SEPTEMBER 2, 2005
12:20 PM CONTACT: Congressman Dennis Kucinich
Doug Gordon (202) 225-5871

Floor Statement of Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich:
The Supplemental for Hurricane Katrina

WASHINGTON - September 2 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) gave
the following speech today on the House floor during a special session
to provide relief money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina:

"This amount of money is only a fraction of what is needed and everyone
here knows it. Let it go forward quickly with heart-felt thanks to
those
who are helping to save lives with necessary food, water, shelter,
medical care and security. Congress must also demand accountability
with
the appropriations. Because until there are basic changes in the
direction of this government, this tragedy will multiply to apocalyptic
proportions.

"The Administration yesterday said that no one anticipated the breach
of
the levees. Did the Administration not see or care about the 2001 FEMA
warning about the risk of a devastating hurricane hitting the people of
New Orleans? Did it not know or care that civil and army engineers were
warning for years about the consequences of failure to strengthen the
flood control system? Was it aware or did it care that the very same
Administration which decries the plight of the people today, cut from
the budget tens of millions needed for Gulf-area flood control
projects?

"Countless lives have been lost throughout the South with a cost of
hundreds of billions in ruined homes, businesses, and the destruction
of
an entire physical and social infrastructure.

"The President said an hour ago that the Gulf Coast looks like it has
been obliterated by a weapon. It has. Indifference is a weapon of mass
destruction.

"Our indifferent government is in a crisis of legitimacy. If it
continues to ignore its basic responsibility for the health and welfare
of the American people, will there ever be enough money to clean up
after their indifference?

"As our government continues to squander human and monetary resources
of
this country on the war, people are beginning to ask, "Isn't it time we
began to take care of our own people here at home? Isn't it time we
rescued our own citizens? Isn't it time we fed our own people? Isn't it
time we sheltered our own people? Isn't it time we provided physical
and
economic security for our own people?" And isn't it time we stopped the
oil companies from profiting from this tragedy?

"We have plenty of work to do here at home. It is time for America to
come home and take care of its own people who are drowning in the
streets, suffocating in attics, dying from exposure to the elements,
oppressed by poverty and illness, wracked with despair and hunger and
thirst.

"The time is NOW to bring back to the United States the 78,000 National
Guard troops currently deployed overseas into the Gulf Coast region.

"The time is NOW to bring back to the US the equipment which will be
needed for search and rescue, for clean up and reclamation.

"The time is NOW for federal resources, including closed Army bases, to
be used for temporary shelter for those who have been displaced by the
hurricane.

"The time is NOW to plan massive public works, with jobs going to the
people of the Gulf Coast states, to build new levees, new roads,
bridges, libraries, schools, colleges and universities and to rebuild
all public institutions, including hospitals. Medicare ought to be
extended to everyone, so every person can get the physical and mental
health care they might need as a result of the disaster.

"The time is NOW for the federal government to take seriously the
research of scientists who have warned for years about the dangers of
changes in the global climate, and to prepare other regions of the
country for other possible weather disasters until we change our
disastrous energy policies.

"The time is NOW for changes in our energy policy, to end the
domination
of oil and fossil fuel and to invest heavily in alternative energy,
including wind and solar, geothermal and biofuels.

"As bad as this catastrophe will prove to be, it is in fact only a
warning. Our government must change its direction, it must become
involved in making America a better place to live, a place where all
may
survive and thrive. It must get off the path of war and seek the path
of
peace, peace with the natural environment, peace with other nations,
peace with a just economic system."