In the Floods, Parties' Agendas Surface

Similarly, Republican leaders are seeking a change in a law that would allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency to give money directly to religious groups that are helping Katrina's survivors, an extension of the administration's long-standing goal of enlarging the role of faith-based organizations in providing social services. "The important thing is to empower and encourage anyone who is willing and able to help to administer emergency help," said Kevin Madden, spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.).

Sensing an opening to pursue their own agenda, Democrats are drafting proposals that advance their goals. "Oh, God, everybody in the world is thinking about their little pet project right now," said a senior House Democratic aide.

Already, House and Senate Democrats, who have complained for years that the government should take larger steps to provide health coverage to the escalating number of Americans who are uninsured, have introduced legislation that would temporarily broaden the scope of Medicaid.

The bills would redefine the program, usually restricted to low-income people, so that survivors of Katrina could sign up, regardless of income. In addition, the Democrats would allow into Medicaid single men and couples without children, people that usually are not eligible. And they would pay for the extra insurance entirely with federal money, no matter how high the cost runs, eliminating the usual arrangement that requires states to shoulder a big share of Medicaid's cost.

The Senate version, which would last six months, would cost $6 billion to $8 billion, while the House bill would last a year.

Rep. John D. Dingell (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the scale of the disaster warrants such changes. "Would you want to be the fellow that tells a single man or childless couple that we are going to take care of their next-door neighbor and we are not going to take care of them when both are wiped out in the flood? I don't want to be the guy that does that."

Dingell said the main motive behind the legislation "is to help people who are desperate" and to give states an incentive to help survivors with health care "without going broke," not to use the disaster as a chance to expand the program.

Senate Democrats have also introduced legislation that would expand the use of federal rent vouchers for Katrina's victims, countering the administration's efforts to diminish reliance on the nation's main rent-subsidy program, known as Section 8. The Democratic proposal would create a new program within the Department of Housing and Urban Development that would resemble Section 8, but with important differences: People who have lost homes would qualify for vouchers no matter how much money they earn, subsidies would be larger than the government usually allows, and tenants would not have to chip in until they find a job.

And Democrats are preparing to do something they have been unable to do for five years: Thwart a Republican tax cut. Democrats helped spur Senate Republican leaders to postpone a showdown last week on the permanent repeal of the estate tax. And they stirred enough political concern to delay, by at least a month, the planned passage of $35 billion in entitlement-spending cuts and $70 billion in tax cuts.