Congress’s Hurricane

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“Holy Moly,” I said the other morning, scanning the front page of the newspaper. I often use intemperate language when I’m reading the paper. The U.S. House of Representatives had just approved $51.8 billion to repair the damage left by Hurricane Katrina. What astonished me was that the bill didn’t pass unanimously. Eleven congressmen voted against it. “Holy Moly,” I said again. I often repeat myself in the morning. “Who are these guys?”


Washington politicians like to pretend they’re separated by principle, viewing one another across vast ideological chasms, but really they’re a lot alike. All of them are suckers for the politics of grand gestures – sweeping resolutions in which they declare themselves in favor of compassion, for example, or against wanton cruelty. And the Katrina appropriation that passed last week was gestural politics at its grandest – and most expensive.


Yet here were 11 who somehow wandered from the herd – nonconformists who refused to abandon themselves to the tidal wave of-self-congratulatory compassion that swept through the capital.


So I said again, “Who are these guys?” (Did I mention I often repeat myself?) And I picked up the phone.


Judged strictly on the merits – something rarely judged when Congress is making a grand gesture – last week’s $51.8 billion appropriation was a curious thing.


Katrina, after all, had scarcely subsided before congressmen began raining curses upon the government’s disaster relief agencies, particularly the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers. Yet the curses had scarcely subsided before the same congressmen began raining money on those same disaster-relief agencies in unprecedented and seemingly indiscriminate amounts.


The earlier criticism was closer to the mark. Long before Katrina exposed its shortcomings, FEMA was known for its inefficient methods. Last year, the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security decided to look closely at the agency’s response to Hurricane Frances in 2004. In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, FEMA managed to unleash $31 million in disaster relief – a majority of which, the inspector general concluded, was misspent.


The hurricane largely bypassed the county. Still, FEMA awarded rental assistance to people whose homes were not damaged, paid nearly twice the “Blue Book” value for vehicles whose losses could not be verified and bought funerals for people whose deaths were unrelated to the hurricane. The agency gave millions of dollars of household appliances to residents who hadn’t requested them.


Even in the midst of Katrina’s devastation, you’d think Congress would increase the budget of such an agency only in manageable increments and with careful oversight. But you’d be wrong.


“Everyone has the same belief: We have to do whatever we possibly can to help, and we’ve got to do it expeditiously,” said New Jersey Republican Scott Garrett, when I called him last week to ask why he’d voted against the appropriation.


“That being said, the best way to provide relief is to make certain it’s going to people who are suffering,” Garrett said. “And it’s more difficult to do that when you just write FEMA a blank check. FEMA says they don’t want us looking over their shoulder. But we’re supposed to be looking over their shoulder. That’s our job.”


Some of the 11 congressmen didn’t seem eager to talk about the vote, preferring to issue written statements that were unanimous in their declared willingness to spend whatever’s necessary – as long as it’s spent well.


“There is no question that the people in the Gulf need help,” Republican Steve King of Iowa said in his statement. “There is no question that billions of dollars are needed,” said the statement from Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado. And all were eager to point out that they had voted for the $10.6 billion in relief that passed the week before.


“I’m not saying we don’t have to spend this money,” Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona told me. “But not in increments of $50 billion at a time, knowing what we know of FEMA. Why not $10 billion a week for five weeks? That will force them to come back, regularly and routinely, and say, ‘This is what we’re doing and what we’re not doing.’ ” Flake pointed out that FEMA had already contracted to spend more than $3 billion to build 300,000 temporary housing units in the disaster zone – without knowing whether the units will be filled or assessing where demand will be greatest.


I wondered what it felt like to stand against a nearly unanimous House – and a unanimous political culture that equates fiscal prudence with heartlessness.


“There’s a lot of political pressure to just give in,” Garrett said. “You vote no, and all the headline says is you voted no. It takes a while to get out the fuller story, that you’re not against helping people.”


“A member of the leadership told the congressman on the floor he would regret this vote,” said Brian Robertson, spokesman for Republican Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, explaining his boss’s vote against the appropriation. “We knew it would be controversial,” Robertson said. “I didn’t put out a press release on it. You can’t get in an argument about it because the other side is always, ‘Well, you don’t care about people.’ Our position is nuanced, and it’s hard to explain nuance. “There’s an old rule in politics: If you’re explaining, you’re losing,” Robertson said.


And the rule is especially true when Congress is busy making grand gestures.



Mr. Ferguson is a columnist for Bloomberg News.


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