| Senator Obama Injects Race Into Fed Response to New Orleans Victims Of Hurricane Katrina |
| Oct-03-2012 |
| Keywords: obama, race, new orleans, hurricane katrina |
Issues of race played a role in the slow response to the devastation in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. That appears to the insinuation made by then Senator Barack Obama in 2007.
In a tape unearthed by The Daily Caller, Obama is heard telling a mostly black audience during the Democratic presidential primary that the country's leaders "don't care about" New Orleans residents.
"When 9/11 happened in New York City, they waived the Stafford Act. ... And that was the right thing to do," he tells the crowd at Hampton University in Virginia. "When Hurricane Andrew struck in Florida, people said, 'Look at this devastation. We don't expect you to come up with your own money. Here, here's the money to rebuild. We're not going wait for you to scratch it together, because you're part of the American family.'"
Obama then questions the immediacy with which aid was offered and delivered to residents in New Orleans.
"What's happening down in New Orleans? Where's your dollar? Where's your Stafford Act money?" Obama says. "Makes no sense. ... Tells me that somehow the people down in New Orleans they don't care about as much."
The Obama campaign, in response to the resurfacing of the video, said that the speech was covered in 2007, and the attention being paid to it now is nothing but a desperate attempt to move the focus from Mitt Romney's controversial "47%" remarks.
"In a transparent attempt to change the subject from his comments attacking half of the American people, Mitt Romney's allies recirculated video of a 2007 event that was open to and extensively covered by the press at the time," spokesman Ben LaBolt said in a statement.
Some media outlets spent the day digging up old reports showing they'd reported on then Senator Obama's remarks. But The Daily Caller claims its unedited tape contains remarks not aired by the mainstream media.
By January 2007, nearly a year and a half after Hurricane Katrina hit, the federal government had committed $110 billion to relief efforts in areas hit by Katrina through a variety of programs, including Community Development Block Grants, funding for the Corps of Engineers and Small Business Administration loans, according to a report that May by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic and Statistics Administration.
But at the time of Obama's speech, there were still concerns about federal response to the disaster under the Stafford Act, which governs relief efforts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was unwilling to waive the law's 10 percent local match provision for aid, like it did after the Sept. 11 attacks and other hurricanes.
"One reason cited for FEMA's reluctance to waive the 10 percent match in New Orleans is concern about corruption," the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies said in a 2008 report on the relief efforts .
That report also noted that then-Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco was pushing in early 2007 for a federal law eliminating the 10 percent match. The House passed the bill, but it stalled in the Senate and President Bush had threatened to veto it. |
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Posted by Lou Dobbs Staff at 7:00 PM Email to a friend |
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