King Suggests Spending Plan for Hurricane Sandy Victims, Vilsack Calls It Heartless

While many including the government are quick to give after disaster strikes, Rep. Steve King, R-Kiron, said this week that federal aid tied to Hurricane Sandy should be sent with a spending plan in place.

King, who is in a race for the 4^th District against Democrat Christie Vilsack, was one of 11 members of Congress who voted against a $51.8 billion relief package to assist victims after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, because he said he was afraid of the fraud and abuse that would follow.

"I want to get them the resources that are necessary to lift them out of this water and the sand and the ashes and the death that's over there in the East Coast and especially in the Northeast," King said during a debate in Mason City about Storm Sandy.

"But not one big shot to just open up the checkbook, because they spent it on Gucci bags and massage parlors and everything you can think of in addition to what was necessary," he said later, referring to Hurricane Katrina as reported on the Huffington Post.

Vilsack called King's comments "heartless" and "extreme,” according to the report.

After 911 first responders asked for help and King also voted against that, Vilsack said, according to the recording.

"In Iowa, we take care of people," she said. "That's all I think I need to say."

Jimmy Centers, a spokesman for King, sent a press release he wrote in September as a response to King's remarks on Hurricane Katrina during a debate broadcast on Iowa Public Television Oct. 25 and during a debate in Clay County.

The press release follows below:

 New York Times: 'Breathtaking' Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid

 

“There are the bureaucrats who ordered nearly half a billion dollars worth of mobile homes that are still empty, and renovations for a shelter at a former Alabama Army base that cost about $416,000 per evacuee.”

“The estimate of up to $2 billion in fraud and waste represents nearly 11 percent of the $19 billion spent by FEMA on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as of mid-June, or about 6 percent of total money that has been obligated.”

“The mobile homes, costing $34,500 each, were supposed to provide temporary housing to hurricane victims. But after Louisiana officials balked at installing them inland, FEMA had no use for them. Nearly half, or about 10,000, of the $860 million worth of units now sit at an airfield in Arkansas, where FEMA is paying $250,000 a month to store them.”

  Reuters: 50 examples of U.S. government waste (a column)

“Fraud related to Hurricane Katrina spending is estimated to top $2 billion. In addition, debit cards provided to hurricane victims were used to pay for Caribbean vacations, NFL tickets, Dom Perignon champagne, “Girls Gone Wild” videos, and at least one sex change operation.”

The Guardian: Fraudsters stole $1bn of Hurricane Katrina relief cash, Congress told

The fraud, exposed through an audit by the Government Accountability Office, found a staggering amount of abuse of the housing assistance and debit cards given out by the beleaguered Federal Emergency Management Agency as a way of granting relief to those who lost their homes to Katrina.

King put forth a principled vote and was one of only 11 Members of Congress who foresaw the potential for massive fraud and abuse stating, at the time, that a more comprehensive plan with input from Congress was needed.

Some criticized King at the time and Christie Vilsack continues the attacks today, most recently on Saturday at the Clay County Fair Debate. But King was right – he saw the writing on the wall.  A better plan was needed.

Don’t take our word for it, here is what The Storm Lake Times and the Sioux City Journal wrote:

The Storm Lake Times: King told us so

(The Storm Lake Times, “King told us so,” Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006)

“Clip out and save this editorial: We were wrong, and Rep. Steve King was right when he voted against a $52 billion appropriation immediately after Hurricane Katrina. At the time, we did not know what was rattling around in his head and we said so. At the time, King said that there was no way the federal government could make use of mobile homes in a flooded area.

            To repeat: King was right.

FEMA is a disaster.  Almost everyone in Congress agrees on this. It makes us sometimes wonder whether the incompetence is by design to prove that the government is not effective at solving people’s problems. Whatever, King sensed at the time that the government was about to waste a ton of money on solutions that were not solutions at all. Given our experience in Iowa, we could not imagine that local, state and federal agencies could be so bumbling. But they are.

King was right

And we were dead-wrong.

The Sioux City Journal: King was Right

Well, after reading an Associated Press story about a report that details how perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in Katrina disaster aid have been misspent, it appears we were wrong and King was right about his vote on the $52 billion.

In an interview with The Journal's Des Moines bureau following his vote against the second Katrina aid package late last summer, King said he couldn't support "... blank check spending without accountability..."

"I put up a principled vote, and I believe that my vote will be easier to defend every day as the public begins to see where the money is being spent," said King.