Other regions face dilemma over Hurricane Katrina relief spending

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers from states untouched by Hurricane Katrina face a conundrum -- showing compassion toward the devastated Gulf Coast without breaking the bank and, at the same time, balancing disaster-relief needs in their own regions.

Congress has already approved two emergency budget packages totaling $62 billion for reconstruction and relief in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. But spending has slowed, and the White House wants some unspent funds to be returned and others to be moved to different projects.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., says the Federal Emergency Management Agency is still sitting on more than half the money. She blames Republicans in Washington for not understanding the depth of Gulf Coast destruction and the federal government's responsibility to rebuild.

"This government needs to understand it can't protect the homeland on the cheap," Landrieu said.

Indiana Rep. John Hostettler knows about disasters, too -- a tornado this month killed 23 people in his Evansville-area district. Still, the Republican was among 12 members of Congress to vote against emergency funding for Katrina in October.

Some lawmakers and economists say the expensive relief efforts have finally reminded Washington about fiscal responsibility.

It took three tries and a two-vote margin for Republicans to pass a House plan to cut the deficit by $50 billion by the end of the decade. The package still must be consolidated with the Senate's $35 billion plan, but neither is enough to offset the emergency spending on Katrina so far, and the Bush administration still wants tax cuts extended.

"Wasteful spending is wasteful spending. The Republicans need to return to their message that being compassionate is doing what it takes to implement a system that works," said Veronique de Rugy, economist for the conservative American Enterprise Institute and a Libertarian.

A lot of the conservative Republican voices on Katrina spending come from Ohio, where 11 of 12 GOP House members voted for cuts to education and health care programs.

Rep. Paul Gillmor estimates that deficit spending on hurricanes could rise to $200 billion and wants commensurate cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Fellow Ohio Reps. John Boehner, Steve Chabot and Jean Schmidt were among the original 15 House members to sign a "Katrina No Pork Pledge," a promise not to support items in emergency bills that are unrelated to Katrina.

But a presidential ban on "pork" in a Homeland Security bill didn't prevent $1 billion in peripheral spending, de Rugy said. And some members of Congress have different definitions of what's related to Katrina and what isn't.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., recently promised that after this fall's harvest, a future supplemental spending bill will include aid for farmers affected by drought or disasters, regardless of where they are.

In North Dakota, farmers felt the pinch of high fuel costs and the Port of New Orleans shutdown and recognize the need to rebuild infrastructure along the lower Mississippi River. But in 1997, Grand Forks had the largest flood evacuation in U.S. history before Katrina, and Dakotans are telling Sen. Kent Conrad, senior Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, that they have a few dike projects to fund back home.

Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, runs the House subcommittee that funds the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency responsible for the levee system that failed and let New Orleans fill like a soup bowl. Katrina was his rationale for adding $1 billion to the president's budget request for energy and water projects.

"Anything Congress spends beyond the president's request can be considered 'pork,"' de Rugy said.

Landrieu disagrees: "Clearly the Gulf Coast and our only energy coast is a priority, but I don't believe we have to sacrifice every other good civil works project around the country."