William Jefferson: "They just don't trust our numbers."

Djaughe · June 1st, 2007, 02:53 PM

Just fer fun....That's about 11,000 freezers that William Jefferson is lobbying for.

Quote:

State could be required to pitch in up to $1 billion for Road Home bailout

State auditor now pegs shortfall at $5 billion.
By Bill Barrow
Capital Bureau

BATON ROUGE -- As Louisiana's $29.6 billion budget plan moves to the Senate without a dime for the state's beleaguered homeowner rebuilding program, pressure continues to mount for Gov. Kathleen Blanco to direct at least some state money toward an impending Road Home deficit now pegged at as much as $5 billion by the state's auditor.

Congressional Democrats and New Orleans state legislators have joined the Republican Bush administration in saying that it's not exclusively a federal responsibility to eliminate the shortfall, as Blanco has insisted since Road Home's finances became political fodder last month.

The House voted 96-6 late Thursday for a 2008 budget that was fundamentally similar to the one Blanco introduced. In doing so, the lower chamber beat back several proposed amendments from New Orleans lawmakers seeking to secure more money for the Road Home.
Despite those actions, budget chairmen in both legislative chambers, Rep. John Alario, D-Westwego, and Sen. Francis Heitmeier, D-Algiers, indicated Thursday that the session will not end without Road Home getting state money, either from a $827 million surplus left unspent from fiscal 2006, more than $1.2 billion in unobligated revenues in the current budget year or the spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

U.S. Rep. Bill Jefferson, D-New Orleans, who waded into the issue behind the scenes this week, said the state's investment must be "significant," which he pegged in the range of $700 million to $1 billion, simply to send a message to a Congress where members are angry over how Louisiana has handled the money it's already gotten. Of particular concern, he said, are a $200 million grant last year to Entergy New Orleans and the $750 million contract inked with ICF International, the private firm hired to run Road Home.

"They think we've wasted a billion dollars or more," he said. "These two things are real inhibitors to us getting anything done."

Asked whether he felt he could lobby his colleagues for more money without a state commitment to show them, Jefferson said, "I'm already asking. That's how I know the answer."

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http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/...ed_to_pit.html