Kerry: Bush Administration Owes New Orleans Economic Action, Not Photo Ops

[kpete]

John Kerry: Bush Administration Owes New Orleans Economic Action, Not Photo Ops
January 12th, 2006

Bush is on a photo op tour as a part “of a series of events to showcase his priorities leading up to the State of the Union address.” Today’s stop was a visit to the “still-ravaged Gulf Coast Thursday after three months away.” Bush said today that he “was committed to rebuilding communities devastated from Hurricane Katrina.” But if that is the case, why has not been back there more often and what is taking so long for the economic action neccessary to rebuild the Gulf Coast? Bush’s visit today followed a meeting of angry residents in New Orleans over the proposed Katrina Recovery Plan.

John Kerry issued a statement today, saying that the Bush Administration is still delaying help for Gulf Coast Small Businesses:

“Rather than another round of photo ops, the President needs to deliver real help for the Gulf Coast and make his Republican Congress pass relief for small businesses devastated by the hurricanes. At every turn to provide real assistance, this administration has chosen to turn its back. Twice the administration scuttled the bipartisan Kerry-Snowe relief for small businesses devastated by the hurricanes, even though it passed the Senate 96 to 0. Of 352,000 applications the SBA has received after Hurricane Katrina, a mere 38,000 loans have been approved. Not one dime of the $62 billion President Bush requested for hurricane relief has been earmarked for immediate small business relief. That’s hardly a ‘heck of a job.’


http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/

[neverevergivein]

1. Go John Kerry! n/t

[Metta]

2. He errs in thinking they care.

What have they shown us so far? Who's benefited?

[KamaAina]

3. King Dumbass** is down there right now taking *credit* for SBA assistance!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=123645&mesg_id=123645

'If you're a small business owner -- we just met today, by the way, with some small business owners in New Orleans. And one of the things that became loud and clear to me there was that because a lot of people haven't moved back into the area, and if you're a small business owner, there's no customers, so you have no cash flow, which makes it awfully difficult to survive. There are SBA loans for this. And I understand for some the word "SBA" means "slow bureaucratic paperwork." (Laughter.) I hear it loud and clear. I will tell you that SBA has put out about $470 million worth of SBA loans. In other words, the loans are going out.'

Note how he managed to screw up the "SBA" acronym... :dunce: