Political Quotes

“I rise today to talk about House Joint Resolution 58. While I will not support it on final passage, I do intend to vote for the Hastert amendment to it. Let me begin by saying that I have grave concerns about the whole decertification process and whether we should be acting to decertify any country. But I do think that the Hastert amendment represents a real compromise. It is a good-faith effort to try to make the process work better. It stays decertification for 90 days, and it gives the United States and Mexican Governments and diplomatic people time to work on resolving some of the common problems we have. I am not very optimistic about reaching agreement on those, given the glare of this amendment--of this bill--by putting people under the gun. But I do think it is a much better solution than full and immediate decertification. Mr. Speaker, I think everyone in this Congress and everyone in this country wants the same thing. We want the eradication of the poison of narcotics and the scourge of them in our society. And I think everybody agrees we are losing this battle. In the last 4 years we have seen drug use double. We have seen that happen after a 12-year decline in drug use by adolescents. Over the past 3 years, 227 agent positions have been eliminated by the administration from the Drug Enforcement Agency. That is 227 fewer agents at a time when drug use among our youth is increasing. I represent a district in Arizona along the border.…”