Sensenbrenner votes no on relieffor victims of Hurricane Katrina

Wisconsin Rep. F. Everybody Sensenbrenner voted "no" this afternoon as the House approved $51.8-billion in aid for victims of Katrina, requested by President Bush.

The vote was 410-11 Roll call.

No details yet on whether Sensenbrenner explained his vote -- although it is hard to imagine what explanation would be acceptable. Maybe he wants to save some of that money for tax cuts for multi-millionaires like himself.

He'll more likely come up with some legal mumbo-jumbo and voodoo economics rather than say he just doesn't give a damn about poor people.

(He could just say it: "The poor are depressing to be around, and they don't dress nicely. Some of those evacuees don't even smell very good. And it is hard to carry on any kind of intellectual conversation with most of them. They don't even know what I mean when I say bootstraps.")

There's already quite a discussion going on about the Negative Eleven over at DailyKos.

The Washington Post explains the bill and its consequences:

The White House request, which Congress is likely to approve today, includes $50 billion for FEMA's disaster response fund, $1.4 billion for the Defense Department, largely for personnel costs and damage to facilities in the Gulf region, and $400 million for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to repair locks, reconstruct channels in the Louisiana bayou and dredge waterways rendered impassable.

That request came on top of a $10.5 billion relief package approved by Congress last week. The escalating cost prompted Republican leaders to delay consideration of two packages of spending and tax cuts, which under statute are supposed to be completed by month's end. The packages would have led to cuts in the growth of entitlement programs largely for the poor, such as Medicaid and food stamps, coupled with an extension of cuts to the tax rate on capital gains and stock dividends, which benefit rich investors.

The disaster has forced the Republicans to temporarily set aside a planned fall agenda of tax relief, spending cuts and retirement savings initiatives, as well as to react to public outrage over the government's slow response to the crisis. The joint inquiry, launched by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) a day after the White House announced its own investigation, will wield subpoena power and is billed as a bipartisan enterprise, although Republicans will dominate the committee. It will be the first joint investigation since the Iran-contra probe of the 1980s.