Reid: Bush trying to hurt programs that help people

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006 | 10:15 a.m.

Pointing to the poor relief effort after Hurricane Katrina to attempts to change Medicare and Social Security, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the Bush administration is trying to ruin federal programs that help people.

In an interview aired Tuesday on "Face to Face With Jon Ralston" on Las Vegas ONE, Cox cable channel 19, Reid said Sen. Mary Landreau, D-La., told him on Aug. 29 that New Orleans was flooding.

Reid said he was assured by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., that National Guard troops would respond the same day, but Reid said that wasn't enough and criticized the response by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Ralston asked Reid how he would change FEMA, which is part of the Homeland Security Department.

"By making it a Cabinet-level position," the senator said.

And Reid again repeated his call for Chertoff, "a person who has not done his job well," to resign.

Southern Nevadans criticized Chertoff after he announced last month that Las Vegas was not considered a top national terrorist target and would not receive millions in federal funding after a risk assessment.

"When you have more people on the Strip on New Year's Eve than in Times Square, maybe you ought to look at it," Reid said.

Sheriff Bill Young, a Republican, criticized the decision, and said he had asked President Bush recently why Las Vegas was stripped of its funding.

Reid said there are "a lot of things in government the president is not aware of."

The senator said the United States is spending $2 billion a week in Iraq. "Yet we can't spend a few million dollars to make it safer here?" Reid said. "I don't buy that."

Reid also said health care under the current administration is another disaster waiting to happen.

The Bush administration is trying to gut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs, which have supported millions of people for over a half century, Reid said.

"And they're doing a good job," he said.

Asked if the Democrats were going to introduce concrete proposals to save such programs, Reid said that the minority had, but votes along party lines had stopped any efforts.

Although Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, a former Utah governor "with a great heart," understands the threat from a flu pandemic similar to the 1918 flu that killed between 50 million and 60 million people, more could be done to protect the American people, Reid said.

"Experts have said we will have a flu pandemic - people, not birds," Reid said. "It's not a question of if, but of when."

Mary Manning can be reached at 259-4065 or at manning@lasvegassun.com.