U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is scheduled to visit Iowa early next month to see the damage from floods and tornadoes first-hand. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, says the visit by Democrat Pelosi is better late than never.
"If she takes her earplugs out that she probably wears when she flies her corporate jet and she listens to the people of Iowa, she will know that we are resilient people but that we should not be treated differently than people were treated in Katrina," Grassley says.
Following Hurricane Katrina’s strike on the Gulf Coast three years ago, Grassley says the then-Republican-led Congress had 60-billion dollars appropriated within a week. Six weeks after the flooding in Iowa, he says Congress couldn’t manage to give Iowa the emergency relief funding it needs.
Grassley says, "Just because we aren’t on television all the time, whining that we aren’t getting enough help from Washington, doesn’t mean that we aren’t hurting and that we don’t need help." Grassley and others in the GOP have criticized Pelosi and other Democrats for adjourned the House in late July without approving a federal flood relief package for Iowa. Pelosi’s visit to Iowa is scheduled for September 8th.