joining me now is congressman frank palone, democrat from new jersey.sman, first, thanks for being here tonight. >> thank you. >> the victims in your state are waiting for help. what is your response to this political game this speaker is playing? >> well, it's absolutely deplorable. the fact of the matter is that the speaker got through that fiscal cliff vote last night. and he decided to pull the sandy relief bill because he was afraid of the tea party and the right wing republicans that hthy shouldn't have to vote for another expensive bill. this wouldn't have happened if it was louisiana or alabama. we've been waiting nine weeks for this relief funding. and every other natural disaster, hurricane ckatrina, tornado alley, they've all gotten the money much sooner than the nine weeks. whatever happens now, since this is not coming up today in the lame duck, we're talking 12 weeks, 15 weeks before we finally get the funding. and, meanwhile, you know, if you go into my towns, they're suffering, you know. they're not getting the money that they need to pu

congressman frank palone is a democrat in new jersey. district includes union beach and bellmawr, towns hit hard by superstorm sandy. really, sir, i've got to show you this sort of shows congress can only do one thing at a time and that one thing now is just figuring out a budget and not disaster relief. it looks like it's a congress that is completely dysfunctional. boehner has assured your republican colleagues that the flood insurance part will be brought up on friday in the new congress that gives $9 billion to fema's national flood insurance program. the agency has said that's going to run out of money by next week. do you think this is all going to happen now? >> well, the problem is that it's not enough. in other words, it's been nine weeks since the storm and we want to rebuild the jersey shore. the fact of the matter is if all we do is pass a bill in the house that deals with the flood inrance aspect, that's not going to address most of the problems. in other words, we want funding for our army corps projects to rebuild our beac