CEDAR RAPIDS - U.S. Senators Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley and Congressmen Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack took to the flood-ravaged streets of eastern Iowa Monday in an effort to revisit the areas still struggling after the flood. With the nation's economy also struggling, business owners hit hard this summer by disaster found out what a long process this really might be.

The tour through downtown Cedar Rapids led Harkin, Grassley and Loebsack inside businesses working to rebuild. Blend owners told the team of their frustration with securing funding. The start of a solution came from Grassley and Loebsack, who both introduced legislation for disaster victims within the nation's bailout bill.

Loebsack says, "That got through as a result of this stabilization package, and that's really going to bring a lot funding to Iowa for small businesses and individuals in terms of tax relief."

Grassley adds, "There's no way of knowing exactly how it affects the owners of Blend or Smulekoff's as an example, but there's very much in that exactly the same thing we did for Katrina. Changes in the tax code to affect just people that have been hurt in the floods directly and then use the tax code to keep businesses open and keep people employed."

The lawmakers say they know that won't be enough for disaster victims here in Iowa. They saw that reality after initially appropriating $60-billion to victims of Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

Loebsack says, "Seven different packages have already been passed by Congress for Katrina, and if it takes a seven for Iowa, we're all in agreement that's what we're going to do."

Grassley says, "When you have a natural disaster, you cannot quantify in a short period of time exactly what the damage is, and we will meet our responsibilities as an insurer of last resort."

Grassley, Harkin and Braley toured flooded areas of Waterloo earlier in the day. Harkin says Iowa is first in line for the first third of $6.5-billion in federal disaster aid scheduled for disbursement in December.