OTTUMWA – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's tour of flood-ravaged Cedar Rapids three months after the worst natural disaster in Iowa history demonstrates the ineffectiveness of Rep. David Loebsack and the Democrat-controlled Congress, Second Congressional District Republican candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks said today.

"Three months is a long, long, long time for Nancy Pelosi to do something.  Unfortunately, what's he's chosen to do doesn't help Iowans at all," Miller-Meeks said.  "Pelosi and congressional Democrats rushed to approve billions of dollars in aid for New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina. They've waited months now to do anything for Iowans who have suffered at least as much."

Miller-Meeks continued, "Dave Loebsack has chosen the go-along-to-get-along path of least resistance so that the House leadership and its special interests will keep pouring money into his re-election campaign.  He's not standing up to Nancy Pelosi.  He's not standing up for the very people he said he'd defend – the people who need our government's help the most. He has become irrelevant in the fight to help Iowans and he needs to be replaced."
Miller-Meeks noted that Pelosi and the Democratic leadership adjourned for a lengthy summer recess in July with promises to address flood relief upon their return to Washington this month. However, Pelosi made more excuses in Des Moines today, saying, "The red tape, which every time you seem to cut some of it, it seems to still be someplace else, and there's just no way to explain that to people."

Miller-Meeks said, "People need results not more explanations.  We've got a lot of finger pointers, but no leaders; a lot of lapdogs, but no bulldogs. Pointing fingers and pushing paper at each other isn't going to keep Iowan's warm this fall and winter, or get their businesses reopened," Miller-Meeks stated.

Miller-Meeks noted MIA congressman's efforts in obtaining crucial Iowa disaster relief have been "lackluster and lazy" since the initial appropriation of $2.65 billion was passed on June 19, 2008. Since that first appropriation was authorized, Congressman Loebsack has gone AWOL – Absent Without Leadership – when Iowans needed him most. He has now devolved to the level of a bureaucratic paper-pusher, sending letters and pointing the blame elsewhere even as damage estimates now top $7 billion.

Miller-Meeks noted, "The Constitution stipulates that Congress should appropriate money to ‘provide for the general welfare.' I believe in small government, but if there was ever a time government is compelled to provide for its citizens, that time is now.  I think Congressman Loebsack needs to take a good look in the mirror and ask not what the Bush administration can do for him, but what he can do for Iowa. Congressman Loebsack wasn't elected to point fingers or send letters blaming others; he was elected to work for his people. He is not getting the job done."