Bush Friends Get Richer/Poor Get No Help

FEMA Director Brown was booted back to DC. However, things have not been getting better in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I am just wondering if FEMA's response is determined by the political make up of the state. Some people say that the aid has gotten to Alabama and Mississipp faster because they have GOP governor's.

Things are not good in Louisiana: Lafayette, LA: FEMA ARRIVES WITH NOTHING
http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050910/NEWS05/509100313

Lafayette's first FEMA office opened Friday, but the center had no money or vouchers to give to hundreds of Hurricane Katrina evacuees who came searching for help.
"We're not giving anything," manager Kenneth Swain told the crowd. "We don't have anything yet to give."

and....
Swain said the center had one line Friday for people to fill out paper applications. Without working computers, he said there was nothing he could do to check on the status of applications already filed. Those who have filed applications should visit the center in a few days to check.

More than 350 people had taken numbers to fill out an application at the center at 1 p.m. Friday.

While people were crowding the FEMA center, U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, and Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter toured the Cajundome. Boustany said he was disappointed that FEMA was just now arriving.

"The communication lines are still not what we want," he said. "We're still not satisfied with the response."

While people are destitute, some companies are making money off the disaster.
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16566183%255E954,00.html

At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of FEMA, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

One is Shaw Group and the other is Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice-President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton.

Bechtel National, a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp, has also been selected by FEMA to provide short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane.

President Bush has named Bechtel's CEO on his Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.'

and...

'COMPANIES with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of the Federal Emergency Agency are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Mr Allbaugh formally registered as a lobbyist for Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root in February.

On Friday, Kellogg Brown & Root received $US29.8 million in Pentagon contracts to begin rebuilding Navy bases in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Halliburton continues to be a source of income for Mr Cheney, who served as its chief executive officer from 1995 until 2000, when he joined the Republican ticket for the White House.

According to tax filings released in April, Mr Cheney's income included $US194,852 in deferred pay from the company, which has also won billion-dollar government contracts in Iraq.