Stephen Horn: “the No. 1 issue facing the Nation today, as each of us knows, is crime. In a recent public opinion poll in the city of…”

“the No. 1 issue facing the Nation today, as each of us knows, is crime. In a recent public opinion poll in the city of Long Beach the voters were asked: ``What concerns you the most?'' The first eight issues were some version of crime: Violence in the schools, illegal aliens, that one cannot walk out in the streets at night. The ninth was health care. Mr. Speaker, I care a lot about health care, and so do most of my colleagues. Only 2 percent of the people said this is the most serious problem. My colleagues will recall that a lot of us got on our feet on both sides of the aisle when the President of the United States came before us and addressed us on the State of the Union and talked about what needed to be done on crime. We thought he was talking about the bill being offered by the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum] on the Republican side of the aisle, the only solid bill before the House that actually deals with the problem. But, no, the President was not. He had no bill here. Neither did his party. His party now has a bill here, and it is a pretty sad bill.”