At least the leadership at FEMA can be counted upon to do the right thing-- that is, IF they are pressured into it.

After $62 billion was passed after Katrina to help in the recovery, and hundreds of millions in no-bid contracts were given to contractors and others with ties to Washington, FEMA today announced that the contracts would be reauthorized by competitive bid.

Of course, they have gotten away with the no-bid contracts, contracts which line the pockets of a few very well connected companies mostly headquartered in Washington, or headquartered elsewhere but with ties to the Bush administration, in Iraq for over two years now. Between this and the Medicare fraud bill, we see that the view that conservatives have about the Federal budget is not that spending should be constrained, but that it should be directed to them. So, when Katrina destroyed much of Louisiana and Mississippi, they naturally assumed that they could continue doing business as usual. Local contractors were left high and dry by the lack of opportunity to place a bid.

Thank God that the country is awake enough now to this sort of thing that the Senate had little choice but to begin hearings, and today we saw the first fruit of it.