Wow another fascinating day in the House.
Republicans introduced amendment after amendment to stymie the Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007. In debate on prohibiting communities from using CDBG funds for local match to receive disaster funds the following occurred.
Republican Rep. Price (GA) objected to remarks by MS Democrat Rep. Gene Taylor (yes MS is not the the land of milk and honey recovery that the Bush assministration and wingnuts would have you think) The objection held up proceedings for over an hour. Taylor’s remarks were ruled improper. This resulted in his speaking rights for the day being withdrawn. Rep. Barney Franks then won a vote to restore Taylor’s speaking rights. Then Repubs got pissy about civility
Here is video of Rep. Taylor’s excellent remarks focusing on the matching funds requirement and the Katrina fraud perpetrated by the Bush administration, Price’s objection and what ensued…
The bill passed 302-125 with motion to reconsider laid on the table.
UPDATE: A transcript of Rep. Taylor’s remarks…
Mr. Taylor: First let me tell the gentleman from Georgia I appreciate him trying to save some
money. I think his efforts though are a year late. If you want to look for Katrina fraud look for the Katrina fraud that was perpetrated by the Bush administration. In south Mississippi at one point we had 40,000 people living in FEMA trailers. We’re grateful for every one of them. But those
trailers were delivered by a friend of the president, by the name of Riley Bechtel, major contributor to the Bush administration. He
got $16,000 to haul a trailer the last 70 miles from Pergus(?) MS down to the Gulf Coast, hook it up to a garden hose, hook it up to a sewer tap
and plug it in. $16,000.So the gentleman never came to the floor once last year to talk about that fraud.