Nola.com: NewsFlash - Jackson compares FEMA contracts to 'white-collar looting'

Nola.com: NewsFlash - Jackson compares FEMA contracts to 'white-collar looting': "JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Rev. Jesse Jackson suggested Sunday that the federal government was encouraging 'white-collar looting' by awarding no-bid contracts to favored companies to rebuild hurricane-ravaged areas, rather than giving those displaced by the disaster priority for jobs.

"The disaster victims should have first priority on the jobs and the contracts," Jackson told The Associated Press as he visited a disaster relief center here, delivering aid, shaking hands and offering encouragement to several hundred people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Jackson said he would meet Monday with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to push for a plan to assist tens of thousands of people scattered around the United States.

"We still got families that don't know if people are dead or missing. While the disconnected and the needy are running from shelter to shelter, the connected and the greedy are getting FEMA contracts," he said. "It's completely unfair."

He said many reconstruction jobs involve cleaning up, moving tree limbs, hauling lumber and trucking, basic jobs that could be carried out by people displaced by the disaster."