As Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill) said, “that’s shameful”

At a U.S. Homeland Security Field Hearing on Monday, Obama talked about “whether we’re in danger of actually forgetting New Orleans,” and he said, “That’s shameful.”

But, even more so, as evidence is becoming more apparent, it is shameful that the federal response has been so slow and despite recent comments from Louisiana U.S. Senator David Vitter that the issue is more state and local, the facts are proving otherwise.  The clog comes from Washington.

Had Vitter been at the hearing (although he was invited) he would have heard Gulf Coordinator Donald Powell admit that federal aid to Louisiana was not equal to that of Mississippi.  However, the damage to Louisiana was substantially more than that of Mississippi.

He would have heard Powell say that Congress had put a cap on how much aid money any one state could get.

"There should be a need for more money," Powell testified. "We will discuss that."

Oh, yeah, when?

When New Orleans shrivels up and die?

When George Bush falls off the statue horse in Jackson Square?

No wonder President Bush failed to mention New Orleans, Katrina and Louisiana during his state of the Union address.  Saying the state of the Katrina money flow was good would have been a lie. 

How can one state get more money than the other although they suffered far less damage?  How could a Congress allow a cap on how much aid money any one state could get under these incredible circumstances?

No wonder that Mayor Nagin has had tremendous time in getting money to his city.  Nagin said he wants more money "but what I am more interested in is getting this money flowing quicker."

"This recovery is not moving as fast as it needs to move, and you are going to hear lots of justifications as to why it's not happening," Nagin said  "But from my perspective, not having resources at the local level is the absolute killer of this recovery."

President Bush can talk all he wants that he has provided 110 million dollars for Katrina, but so far the money is not getting there largely due to federal bureaucracy and federal rules that his administration did very little to remedy.  How else can you explain the discrimination of one state over another and the actual knowledge that this disparity was happening.

Now, the main question we all must ask is why has President Bush and some members of Congress allow this to occur?  Why has it taken a hearing by a Democratic controlled Congress to get some basic facts about the discrimination against a state and the clog of money holding up a city wanting to recover?

Whatever the reason, it’s absolutely shameful.