Political Quotes

“The Forest Service spent 53 percent on administration last year, probably more this year, including law enforcement personnel. A lot of money replacing their newest vandalism, which is the fee signs. The amount of money collected by the Forest Service last year was enough money to meet .06 percent of their backlog. Not 6 percent, not six-tenths of a percent, but 6/100ths of 1 percent of their backlog. At that rate, yes, in 1,600 years of collections we could meet today's backlogs. But of course there would be a few more backlog projects in the 1,600 years. Yes, we do need additional funds. They should be appropriated. They should be requested by the administration and they should be appropriated. Perhaps we should ask the mining companies to pay a small fee for using the public lands, as opposed to dumping it on the back of individual taxpayers. The key thing here is that we are being asked to buy a pig in a poke. We do not know how well it is working or where the money is going. This is just like the previous debate, the debate on the K-V funds, where the gentleman from California (Mr. Miller) was successful. We are creating an unaccountable slush fund.”