Political Quotes

“A lot of my people did not have a roof over their heads for several nights. A lot of children were sleeping under tents. And we are here debating the budget. I believe it is very important for us to work on that task force and find out a better way to handle these emergency situations. I do not want to see the deficit go up every time there is a crisis, be it in California, or Arizona, or Washington, or Hawaii, or Oregon, or New York, or Florida. I would like to see us have a disaster fund that is set up and ready to go. The Senator from Alaska yesterday put out an idea of a checkoff. There are many other ideas. We have to face this problem, and I want to face this problem. But I say again to my friends in this Chamber who have been, individually, so kind to me and to Senator Feinstein, expressing their concern, that we cannot in the middle of a crisis, when money is going to run out in 7 days, when we have 26,000 homes that have been red tagged or yellow tagged, just in the city of Los Angeles--that does not include the many other cities like Santa Monica and Santa Clarita and other cities around there. Red tagged or yellow tagged means they are dangerous. A red-tagged home you cannot go back in, and a yellow-tagged home you probably should not. There are 26,000 whose lives are uprooted just in the city and county of Los Angeles. This is not a partisan issue. Mayor Riordan, a Republican, needs our help.”