Bush forgot about the Katrina victims in his State of the Union address. Hell – it seems like a lot of America forgot about them (and we are only 3 days from Fat Tuesday). The Democrats in the House have not forgot though. They are introducing legislation to get more help to the storm ravaged area:

House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn today announced plans to introduce legislation to help cut the bureaucratic red tape and speed up funding assistance to areas in the Gulf Coast impacted by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The legislation waives the 25 percent local funding match required under the Stafford Act and cancels the required repayment of Community Disaster Loans. Clyburn will introduce the legislation tomorrow and the Majority leadership has made a commitment to move the bill quickly through the House. In addition, Clyburn announced he will meet with committee chairmen on Friday to explore the long-term legislative issues relating to hurricane recovery.

This will be an interesting debate to watch. We just learned that at least $10 billion has been lost in Iraq due to contractor fraud. I wonder how many Republicans, who continually blocked the oversight of Iraq contractors, will say “we don’t have the money for this”. I bet there is a lot of them. We need to collect video clips of every single one of them saying this too. It will make great campaign material next year. Remember – what happened to the Gulf Coast during Katrina can happen anywhere in this country. At least the Democrats will work for the people and not the corporations.