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DEL.ICIO.USA little shrimp talks hurricane politics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As many of us know so very well, Georgia money spends just fine in Louisiana. So U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu was in Atlanta Wednesday afternoon, collecting some for her upcoming 2008 race.
In a phone conversation, Landrieu said she’d been feeling pretty good about her fundraising efforts, which have gotten off to a late start in the aftermath of Katrina/Rita. But seeing the extraordinary first-quarter numbers put up by her Senate colleagues Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination left her “really feeling like a little shrimp - and not of of those big, brown Louisiana shrimp.”
Landrieu said her state is making progress in securing more funds for hurricane recovery, although the Bush administration has called the $1.3 billion included in the upcoming supplemental budget “excessive and extraneous.”
“If he’s not going to do it, Congress will do it. And if he’s going to veto it, let him go ahead,” the Louisiana Democrat said.
Landrieu was particularly critical of the administration’s refusal to waive the requirement that the state match 10 percent of what the feds send in disaster money, something Landrieu said has been done in the case of 32 of the last 38 federally-declared disasters.
The per capita cost of Andrew to the citizens of Florida was $139, and 9/11 cost New Yorkers $390 per capita, and the 10 percent match was waived in both cases, Landrieu said. The per capita cost of Katrina/Rita to Louisianans was $6,700.
On the subject of the day in Louisiana politics - whether former U.S. Sen. John Breaux can qualify to run for governor, although he has established resident in Virginia - Landreiu’s allegiences are clear.
“If people say, is he a citizen of Maryland or a citizen of Louisiana, I don’t think there’s any question,” Landrieu said of her longtime ally. “But I think eventually that question will have to be settled in court.”
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