Political Quotes

“The whole point of this amendment is to prioritize among scarce resources. It is true that we have funded Indian programs this year to the extent that we thought was possible, and that represents an increase over last year, and it represents an increase more than the other programs within this budget were increased. But, Mr. President, that is not to say much, because the needs of our Indian communities are so significantly greater than the amount of money that we can provide that this is a scant comfort, I think, to those in our Indian communities. I detailed, and my colleague Senator Campbell from Colorado detailed, some of the things which we learned in the hearings yesterday jointly held which discussed the dire situation on our Indian reservations today regarding gang violence and the need to, obviously, do much, much more in a concerted way to alleviate that problem now.”