was for puerto rico, it was a complete zero. they got absolutely nothing. this is probably a combination of a couple things that caused that. first the government has a credibility problem in d.c. dating back to the white house scandal, then the death toll. and the fact the white house was somewhat hiding the ball. is that how they got shut out of this tax bill? maybe, maybe not. what probably happened was it was a casualty of needing to move the bill very quickly and puerto rico doesn t have much of a constituency in congress to speak of. so the house republicans have unveiled an $81 billion disaster bill. that s texas, florida, u.s. virgin islands and puerto rico and the wildfires. but that s a lot more than the white house thought they were going to end up with. is that a net positive for puerto rico? yeah, it s generally being seen as a net positive. a lot of that money will go to the army corps of engineers which in whitefish s absence, it
protesters killing one woman. city officials expect to appoint an interim chief in the next week. homeland security secretary heading to puerto rico today. she will be address iing the relief efforts three months after hurricane maria. survivors are in urgent need of help. an independent organization refugees international, food, bottle the water are widely available on the island, but thousands of people lack access to drinkable running water, electricity and adequate housing. the governor ordering a recount of the death toll. the number stands at 64. but a cnn investigation found it to be much higher than that. house republicans proposing an $81 billion disaster aid package for areas hit by hurricanes and wildfires this year. that s double the $44 billion the trump administration request requested. doing some great reporting there. a third of puerto rico without power months later.
the territory today to assess the recovery from hurricane maria as house republicans look to approve an $81 billion disaster aid package for areas hit by hurricanes and wildfires. joining us nadya vel has kes of new york, fighting for more help for the island since hurricane maria devastated the area three months ago. as i understand it you were there about three weeks ago. what do you want the secretary to see today? i would like for the secretary to go to the rural areas where the devastation is evident and go out and get out of the metropolitan area. when president trump went to puerto rico, he remained in san juan, the met thrropolitan area. it didn t offer a vision of the devastation the puerto ricans were facing after the hurricane. as you know and you have
billion. we still don t know how much damage irma will leave behind. rene marsh joins me. and it seems like at this rate, fema will be completely drained when this strikes. they have to figure out the whole funding thing, and as i speak to you, i can tell you fema is dangerously close of running out of money. fema had just over $1 billion with $541 million of that, as they say, for immediate use, and that was as of tuesday morning. on wednesday, that s today, the house did approve a $781 billion relief aid package, but now the senate has it and it s gotten political at this point because it s being tied to raising the debt ceiling. but again, the point is, will this be enough? we are already hearing from senators from florida, senator marco rubio as well as bill nelson, who are saying even if this passes congress, the 7.8
bringing in according to the treasury department. in october and november, the government took in $432 billion as you see there, still rang up a debt, deficit, rather, of $181 billion. and for the year the overall deficit projected to be more than $615 billion. that s up significantly from the previous two years. so, judge, you know, you look at these numbers, if you ran your household this way be bankrupt. kennedy: you d be bankrupt, they d take away your home, your credit would be destroyed. yet somehow people in charge, people in power can t help themselves. they want to spend money so badly in their home districts, in their home states. but we can t afford that. we can t keep propping that up. exactly. and i think, i think that that s one of the reasons why trump may be able to do what nobody else thinks he can do. it s kind of like when the election was coming around and everybody was like can he pull this out? the polls all say he s losing, and nobody was counting on that