Joe Lieberman: “I will start a response. Senator Obama has circulated a document which indicates if this formula is applied, I believe…”

“I will start a response. Senator Obama has circulated a document which indicates if this formula is applied, I believe 34 States will get more money than under our proposal. We have a chart we are circulating which says that, in fact, 32 States lose. That is translated into the map here. Here is what the difference is, because in some sense we are measuring different things. In our chart, we are measuring the guaranteed funding of .45 under ours and .25 under that of the Senator from Illinois. The reason we are doing that is because that is all we can say with certainty that is guaranteed. We are both in fact using the same bottom line or top line, which is $913 million, which is the level the bill, S. 4, authorizes for the State Homeland Security Grant funding. The reason this says 32 States and the District of Columbia will lose guaranteed funding under the amendment of the Senator from Illinois is because that is what we have studied: the guaranteed minimum.”