John McCain’s Miserable Record on Hurricane Katrina
ohn McCain’s Time for Action tour arrived in New Orleans Thursday, where McCain toured the hurricane-damaged 9th Ward and criticized both the Bush Administration and Congress for its handling of the disaster. Lamenting the pace of recovery, McCain said, “I want to assure you it will never happen again in this country. You have my commitment and my promise.”
But McCain’s record on Hurricane Katrina suggests that he was part of the problem, not the solution. McCain was on Face the Nation on August 28, 2005, as Katrina gathered in the Gulf Coast. He said nothing about it. One day later, when Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, McCain was on a tarmac at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, greeting President Bush with a cake in celebration of McCain’s 69th birthday. Three days later, with the levees already breached and New Orleans filling with water, McCain’s office released a three-sentence statement urging Americans to support the victims of the hurricane.
Though McCain issued a statement the next week calling on Congress to make sacrifices in order to fund recovery efforts, he was quoted in The New Leader on September 1 cautioning against over-spending in support of Katrina’s victims. “We also have to be concerned about future generations of Americans,” he said. “We’re going to end up with the highest deficit, probably, in the history of this country.”
That attitude was borne out in McCain’s actions and votes. Forty Senators and 100 members of Congress visited New Orleans before he did; he finally got there in March 2006. He voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local responses to Katrina in med-September 2005. He repeated that vote in 2006. He voted against allowing up to 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to people affected by the hurricane, and in 2006 voted against appropriating $109 billion in supplemental emergency funding, including $28 billion for hurricane relief.
Shortly after the disaster in New Orleans, McCain did introduce a bill that sought to improve communications mechanisms for first-responders and authorities. The bill failed to go anywhere, and McCain later voted against other bills that had similar provisions.
McCain may talk sympathetically about New Orleans’ recovery this week, but the record shows that when it mattered most, McCain failed to act. His passion for fiscal conservatism blinded him to a city and a region in need, and his Time for Action is simply too late.
Jonathan Stein is a reporter in the Mother Jones D.C. bureau.
© 2008 Mother Jones
Does anyone who reads this have the connections to get some editor at the NYT, WP, CNN, MSNBC to pay attention and get this information out to the middle of the roaders and conservatives who are falling all over themselves to support McVain?
It is time for John to retire and “spend more time with his family”
Maybe the best thing Barack can do is start ignoring Hillary and just campaign against McCain. All she’s doing is repeating the same lies and personal attacks and even the public is getting tired of hearing the same old same old. McCain however is getting a free ride to rewrite his history. No wonder he’s going up in the polls. With no one pointing out the facts, he’s looking better and better. Pretty soon, he’ll have me thinking I should vote for him. Certainly we can’t count on the Propaganda Machine (once known as the Fourth Estate) setting the record straight.
kathyodat
Politicians hate the public. Plain and simple.
BeForKids……please don’t vote for mccain…he’s nothing but garbage….he will be exposed by late summer\fall…that is IF THE MEDIA DOES IT’S JOB HALFWAY DECENT !
If we’re waiting for the media to do their
job then we’re screwed! Their main concern is
the flag pin (or lack there of) on Obama’s
lapel. Enough with the f*&^ing flag pin, can
we just elect someone with a few brain cells
still functioning. Us common folks aren’t
going to have a beer with the President or be
invited to a BBQ with him. Let’s forget that
bullshit and try to elect someone smarter
than most of us. We have tried the cowboy
with the IQ of a rock and it has been a
TOTAL failure. Someone please try to explain
to me how about 80 percent of Americans
think the country is headed in the wrong
direction but almost 50 percent are backing
McCain who might as well be Bush about 95
percent of the time. Get a grip on reality
people, or the America we love is going
down the tubes.
“Maybe the best thing Barack can do is start ignoring Hillary and just campaign against McCain.”
Brilliant! A large part of my unease with the democratic party situation has been the fact that they seem to be acting; playing roles that divert attention from the real issues which would /will only lead to more of the McSame ole bushit we have been dealing with.
Kathyodat~ you are indeed a wise person.
I heard he has alzheimers. He will be so controled by outside forces he will make Bush look like a surgeon. One report I read he even wet himself when he was in Iraq and his handlers had to change him. We need someone on the inside to say he wears Depends. At 73 year old person running the mighiest nation in the world? Duck and cover boys it maybe get hot.
Hasn’t everybody noticed-this guy is not playing with a full deck!
if he is 72 years old at the start of a four year term and making many senior mistakes now, what can we expect halfway or more through the term?
don’t forget his opinion that if we allow a realistic limitation (instead of 180 days from a decision the employer keeps secret from the employee) for equal pay lawsuits, we will just be opening the country up to multitudes of lawsuits. how about enforcing the equal pay act, instead?
What would you have had McCain do, go to New Orleans and hold his hands up and stop the hurricane. Why not ask the Mayor of New Orleans and Congress where the money went?
Jdragon, why not ask the Bush administration where the money went? Start with KBR ($170 million). Jack Kemp described the disaster not as a tragedy exacerbated by government failures, but rather as “a golden opportunity” to implement “government policies that facilitate and empower the private sector and private citizens.”
The following link is to a website with an excellent timeline on New Orleans describing the windfall:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090207C.shtml
Barack is right, we need to change how business is being done in Washington and he is promising to do that. Whether or not he lives up to his promise remains to be seen, but I want to give him a chance. Hillary on the other hand is saying we have to work within the system we have. Sounds like Rumsfeld. Not the system we want, but the one we have. No thanks.
kathyodat
Thank you sLiMsHaDy, sounds like we’ve found one point of agreement.
kathyodat