[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 19611-19613]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      THE DISASTER IN NEW ORLEANS

  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, Americans continue to be moved by the 
devastation of Hurricane Katrina and its toll on our fellow Americans, 
from New Orleans and in the Gulf Coast region, particularly in 
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The human tragedy has brought out 
the generosity of the American spirit, as people have opened their 
homes and pocketbooks to families uprooted by the storm. This is a 
disaster of Biblical proportions. The dimensions of this tragedy almost 
are beyond human comprehension and the failures by our Government to 
prepare and to respond run deep and wide.
  Yesterday the President and the White House spokesman proclaimed that 
the administration would not play the blame game. This is not a game. 
This is not some schoolyard spat. It is about life and death and, most 
important, it is about getting it right the next time.
  We must be about the work of providing continuing relief to our 
citizens and rebuilding our communities. But we also cannot delay the 
important task of determining what went so gravely wrong, and holding 
accountable those responsible for the tragic failures that Americans 
have seen so clearly on their televisions and read in their newspapers. 
The next disaster could be tomorrow. It could be a devastating 
earthquake. It could be a deadly terrorist attack. It could be another 
destructive storm. We need an immediate and independent assessment of 
what went wrong and what we must do to fix it.
  Any corporation faced with such devastation and incompetence by its 
leadership would have its board and its shareholders demanding an 
independent assessment of the failures and demanding accountability 
from its leadership. It would not be business as usual.
  The same holds true for the people's Government. The people have a 
right to candor and honesty about the state of their Government's 
preparedness to protect them. The new Department of Homeland Security, 
created by this administration, was supposed to protect us. It was 
supposed to do a better job of keeping us safe. It failed, and more 
than a million people have been displaced from their homes, a treasured 
American city is a wasteland, thousands have lost their lives, an 
economy has been shattered with ripple effects all over America. 
Candor, honesty, action--that is what we need. The people have a right 
to know that they will be better protected the next time.
  Another lesson of this tragedy is that America can ignore the 
disparities in our society no longer. The powerful winds of this storm 
have torn away the mask that has hidden from our debates the many 
Americans who are left out and left behind. We see now in stark relief 
that so many Americans live every day on the brink of economic 
disaster. For them any setback becomes a major obstacle to survival, 
and a hurricane of this force leaves their lives in the balance. These 
disparities have emerged not out of malice but out of indifference, but 
they are real and we can neglect them no longer.
  In August, the Census Bureau reported that the poverty rate in 
America is up and has risen for 4 years. It is now 12.7 percent, with 
37 million Americans surviving in poverty. A quarter of all African 
Americans live in poverty; for Latinos it is 22 percent. One-fifth of 
our children live in poverty, and a tenth of our elderly. Thirty-six 
million Americans are hungry or malnourished. A third of our children 
are in families without health insurance. In fact, 45 million Americans 
have no health insurance at all. And the disparity in incomes has never 
been greater, with the rich getting richer and the rest of America, the 
poor and the middle class, falling behind.
  People in the middle class are having a harder time, too. Already 
they were struggling to cope with rising gasoline prices, rising 
college tuition, and rising costs of health care. Now those affected by 
Katrina have lost everything: Their homes, their cars, their family 
photos--everything. We cannot be an America of haves and have-nots. We 
cannot be an America of 50 separate, isolated States. As we rebuild the 
Gulf Coast, we must also come together to tackle these disparities. We 
must be a united America, one Nation under God, with liberty and 
justice for all. And when we say all, we mean all.
  To address this challenge, our Government must respond in ways that 
are as good and compassionate as the American people. We cannot just 
fix the hole in the roof; we need to rebuild the whole foundation.
  I propose that we create a New Orleans and Gulf Coast Redevelopment 
Authority, modeled after the Tennessee Valley Authority in its heyday. 
We

[[Page 19612]]

should invest at least $150 billion, as our Democratic leader Harry 
Reid has suggested previously. We should invest it in actions to work 
with Governors and mayors and citizens and communities to plan, help 
fund, and coordinate for the reconstruction of that damaged area. It 
should help hire workers to put people back to work rebuilding their 
own communities and helping them get back on their feet again.
  This is a national responsibility. The tragedy affects us all, not 
only in our hearts, but it affects the national economy and our 
national security.
  That is the America we stand for, an America where we treat each 
other with respect, where we address our mistakes and meet our 
challenges with honesty and candor and immediate action. America 
deserves no less.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. BAYH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BAYH. Madam President, I do not speak often on the floor of the 
Senate. Frankly, it has been my observation that we have too many 
speeches and not enough action in this town. But some events are so 
profound that they demand our reflection. The tragedy along the Gulf 
Coast is such a time.
  This Sunday will be the fourth anniversary of the terrorist attacks 
on September 11, attacks that opened our eyes to the dangerous world we 
live in, made real the existence of evil, and shook our national 
complacency forever.
  Last week we witnessed a tragedy of equal proportions, not a 
terrorist attack, but an act of nature made more tragic by the 
violation of the bedrock American value of community and the 
fundamental promise implicit between our Government and our people. Our 
Government failed at one of the most basic functions it has, providing 
for the physical safety of our citizens, and in so doing raised 
questions about who we are as a people, what makes us special, and 
whether our leaders understand.
  I am not going to dwell on the horror of the past week which we as a 
Nation witnessed and which the people of the Gulf Coast experienced. 
Among the horrors, we also witnessed countless episodes of tremendous 
heroism and heartwarming generosity, and we saw Americans rise up to 
play the role the Government should have played by getting money, food, 
water, clothes, even opening their homes to complete strangers. That is 
the best of America.
  There will be a time for hearings and for factfindings, for 
commissions. Those investigations must be independent, so we can get to 
the bottom of what happened and why. And those responsible must be held 
accountable for their mistakes, not promoted or awarded medals.
  Today, however, I want to talk about something deeper: The breaking 
of a promise between our basic institutions of Government and the 
American people who have created those institutions. The fact is that 
scores, maybe hundreds or thousands of lives were lost, not simply 
because people didn't leave or because the levees were not 
strengthened, but because after the storm our institutions of 
Government failed them, and that is not right. Many of us never thought 
we would live to see the day when tens of thousands of our fellow 
citizens would be left for nearly a week to fend for themselves without 
food, without water, and stranded on rooftops.
  This is a moment where we have to step back and revisit the idea of 
what America is all about. People came here because of that idea. They 
came because of the promise that everyone has an opportunity to aspire 
to something greater, and if you work hard and play by the rules, our 
Government will stand up for you if you happen to fall down on your 
luck. What happened last week in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast 
broke faith with that idea in a profound way.
  I believe the truth about America today is that our institutions, and 
particularly this administration, have broken their fundamental promise 
to the people they were elected to serve. It is unfortunate but perhaps 
not surprising from leaders ideologically hostile to the institutions 
they lead. The answer to the challenges we confront today cannot be big 
government, but it can also not be no government. And above all it 
cannot be incompetent government. But that is what they have given us.
  What we are seeing in New Orleans is the result of a series of 
misjudgments and misdirected priorities that have all produced an 
increasingly tragic result, a people unprotected by their own 
Government, a government that no longer embodies our most basic and 
most precious of values. From soldiers without armor to protect them in 
battle, to children with no health care to protect them against 
disease, to corporate employees with no pensions to provide for them in 
their elder years, this administration has sown the seeds of 
indifference and division for too long and now we are all reaping the 
whirlwind.
  Americans have always prized individuality. It is a part of our 
national DNA. But America is a community that draws strength from the 
sum of our people and has always known that the total of that sum is 
worth far more than its individual parts.
  We can only do so much alone. To maximize our freedom, to make the 
most of our liberties, sometimes we must act together. It is what 
separates us from the law of the jungle. It is what makes us special 
and different from other countries, too.
  As a civil rights leader once said, we may have arrived on these 
shores in different ships, but we are all in the same boat now.
  Last week we were not all in the same boat. There were too many left 
adrift, too many of our boats were left behind. This is not the America 
we have known for more than 200 years. It is not the America we should 
aspire to be. Our Government broke a promise. It did not keep faith 
with our values. It is time for us to renew that commitment, to make a 
new promise to the people who went through the horror of last week, and 
to say to each and every American across our great land, we are going 
to work with you to rebuild your city, to give you the tools and the 
resources you need to get back on your feet, that together we are all 
in the same boat and that everyone--everyone--has a place. It will help 
you and it will strengthen all of us.
  We must provide funding to school districts that accept displaced 
children. We must provide medical assistance for displaced victims 
without forcing them to wade through endless redtape. We must rebuild 
and strengthen the levee system in New Orleans as quickly as humanly 
possible, which should have been done years ago, so that its people 
never again will face the calamity of last week. If Holland can do it, 
the little nation of Holland, then so, too, can we.
  But to accomplish all of this and so much more that remains to be 
done, it will take leadership, leadership unlike that which has 
controlled Washington for these last several years. The times demand 
leaders who understand that the true test of leadership is not how we 
accentuate the differences among us but instead how we reconcile them, 
how we forge principled consensus, how we find common ground. We need 
leaders who appeal to us to think about something other than narrow 
self-interest but instead focus upon the greater, the better good.
  The answer to our challenges can be found all around us on this 
floor. It is written in the motto of the Great Seal of the U.S. Senate. 
E Pluribus Unum: Out of Many, One.
  It is written on the motto of the great seal of the United States 
Senate, ``E Pluribus Unum,'' Out of Many, One.
  United, there are no challenges we cannot meet; divided, we will be 
surrounded by dangers, our potential as a nation unfulfilled.
  So this Sunday, September 11, let us say a prayer for the victims in 
New York and for those on the Gulf Coast and, most of all, let us say a 
prayer and ask for a blessing on this great country that we might have 
the unity and the wisdom and the selflessness to fulfill

[[Page 19613]]

the full meaning of our creed: ``One nation under God, with liberty and 
justice for all.''
  Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Graham). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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