Congressional Black Caucus Sitting On Katrina Donations

The Cybercast News Service reports that the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which severely criticized the Bush administration for its slow response to Hurricane Katrina, has yet to distribute one penny of money contributed to their own relief fund:

"We are collecting all the way up through the very end of the year and then our board has set aside a committee who is going to administer the funds," Patty Rice, spokeswoman for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), told Cybercast News Service on Wednesday.

This seems like a particularly lackadaisical attitude for an organization whose members have repeatedly gone over-the-top in condemning government response to the catastrophe:

"We have witnessed something shockingly awful and that is the lack of response, the quick response, from our government to those Americans who are suffering [and] who are dying," said U.S. Rep Jesse Jackson Jr., (D-Ill.) on Sept. 2, four days after Katrina made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

"I'm ashamed of our government. We don't want another Iraq, where the money just goes off somewhere. This is real human need. And I'm outraged by the lack of response from our federal government," U.S. Rep. Carolyn C. Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), said.

Cybercast New Service also reports that in September, CBC Foundation told reporters that they had already collected over $700,000 for Katrina relief. Apparently someone miscounted, because now only $400,000 is waiting to be distributed. And will continue to wait until at least February.