An Unusual Katrina Honor Roll

Rarely do I single out Congressmen for praise. But as I tried to comprehend our larger national response to Hurricane Katrina, my perceptions about the inherent nature of government intervention were reinforced by the negligence of the Army Corps of Engineers and the sluggishness of FEMA.

Billions of dollars spent on levee protection and disaster response before Katrina did little to mitigate the harm to the residents of New Orleans. That's because the Army Corps of Engineers is perpetually busy with urgent matters like throwing senior citizens in jail for polluting their own property with sand (no joke). It was also no surprise that Wal-Mart was on the scene providing relief long before federal authorities.

So when Congress passed another $50 billion last week to aid the disaster relief efforts, there were few questions asked about where the money was actually going. Only in government can rampant failure prompt additional appropriations. No allowance was made for reductions in spending elsewhere.

Hopefully, the real victims will wind up getting something close to 10 cents on the dollar, but a post facto accounting will be a long time coming -- if it ever does.

Here are the brave members who voted against the measure:

Joe Barton (TX)
Jeff Flake (AZ)
Virginia Foxx (NC)
Scott Garrett (NJ)
John Hostettler (IN)
Steve King (IA)
Butch Otter (ID)
Ron Paul (TX)
James Sensenbrenner (WI)
Tom Tancredo (CO)
Lynn Westmoreland (GA)

At the risk of being portrayed as "heartless" and otherwise insensitive to people in desperate need, these members of Congress demonstrated more leadership with their "nay" vote than any of those elected officials who decry the "blame game" merry-go-'round before they jump happily upon it.

Number of Senators who voted against the measure: ZERO. Perhaps they should read Davey Crockett's account of an irate constituent who once decried his fiscal largesse in the name of "compassion", and the lesson subsequently learned. Col. Crockett observed the following, in part, about his Congressional colleagues:

Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.

It is a statement of the obvious, but eminently worth repeating.