Washington, D.C. – The following is a written statement by Steve Ellis, Vice-President of Programs at Taxpayers for Common Sense, on the upcoming Presidential address on the Hurricane Katrina aid package:

President George W. Bush faces a challenging task. The President has to deliver one doozy of a speech to regain the public’s confidence and rebuild the trust that his administration is capable of leading relief efforts on the ravaged Gulf coast. However, you can’t buy the confidence of the American people. After weeks of flailing response efforts in the devastated Gulf region, the only thing that will restore confidence is results on the ground and a clear vision that will enable us to effectively respond to future storms of similar proportions.

There needs to be a historic commitment to rebuild, but I am concerned that the President will not put a price tag on his proposal tonight. The lack of a spending plan makes this speech appear to be more about political damage control than disaster relief. We must begin planning how we will pay for this relief. The President must demand offsets to help pay for Katrina spending in the upcoming emergency spending bill, and if Congress doesn’t deliver, he needs to veto the legislation. Empty promises to control runaway spending just doesn’t cut it. The President needs to ensure our dollars deliver real benefits for the region, the nation and especially those most affected by Katrina, otherwise we are simply adding a fiscal disaster to the natural one.

The bottom line is, we can’t afford to simply hand over the keys to the Treasury. Past experience tells us that some individuals and companies will make hefty profits on the backs of the hurricane victims. The President needs to support a zero tolerance for waste, fraud and abuse in recovery spending. Penalties for contracting abuses and profiteering should be doubled or tripled, and abusers should go to jail.

Liberals and conservatives should be wary of the blank check approach to rebuilding. For liberals, watch out for no-bid contracts and cronyism, for conservatives you can kiss any modicum of fiscal responsibility and limited government goodbye.

Across the country, Americans are dipping into their pocket books and savings accounts, sacrificing some of their income to help those impacted by this tragedy. America’s politicians need to sacrifice as well. But instead, they seem to want the easy way out – just pile on the red ink and continue business as usual. We need to reign in the pork barrel, give up a few cherished but non-essential spending initiatives, and try to maintain some semblance of fiscal discipline.

We didn’t have to be in these dire fiscal straights. By running near record deficits for the last several years, there is no slack in the budget and Katrina spending will strain all of our budgetary limits.

America needs strong leadership to look not just at the failures in response, but also why we were so exposed to Katrina’s impacts. Obviously, the Gulf coast will never be impervious to hurricanes. But we can mitigate future storm impacts by ensuring that reconstruction helps people get out of harm’s way and strengthens protection where that is not possible. The President must quickly act to make changes to the nation’s floodplain policy before Katrina’s impacts recede in the nation’s consciousness.