http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-noval06.htmlGOP lawmakers fear Katrina fallout
<snip>Rep. Richard Baker, a 10-term conservative Republican member from Baton Rouge with a 91 percent pro-Bush voting record, sat down with me last week to talk politics frankly: "The backlash is unknowable, but it is a big concern. When we go from
a Republican White House to a Republican Congress to a Republican Senate to a majority of Republicans in the state congressional delegation, we are viewed as in charge. We are being measured by this storm response and by what Republicans do to help poor people."
Will it save Republicans from the consequences of six months of inaction and incompetence? The reported minimum cost of the notorious trailers as temporary housing is $60,000 per unit, enough to build permanent modular housing. "We would have been better off," Baker told me, "if we'd had a contract with Wal-Mart, where you could have gone in and bought 100,000 emergency response packages, with bottled water and Pop-Tarts."