Eleanor Holmes Norton: “So as the residents of the District of Columbia look at the national appropriations, they will see the national…”

“So as the residents of the District of Columbia look at the national appropriations, they will see the national conference report and they will have much to be grateful for because the wholesale attack on everything from education to health care reform did not succeed. Yes, there were also some extraordinary and important things in the D.C. appropriations, even as the city is in anguish that the Congress would dictate to the city how it must spend its own local funds. The city is justifiably angry that there was one rider, one amendment at odds with our own preferences, forced upon us in the way of authoritarian governments. At the same time, other riders that would have been terribly destructive, we were able to fight off. The D.C. funding had in fact a salutary effect and we are mindful of the needs of the Nation and of the city, especially the funding for the Homeland Security headquarters in ward 8, a ward with a high unemployment rate. DC TAG, which is the program that allows our children to go to State colleges around the country because we do not have a State university system. And we are especially appreciative of the funding for HIV/AIDS, to engage in education and treatment in a city that has a high AIDS rate. The Appropriations Committee has tried to overcome the partisanship of the 112th Congress. It did so to a fair extent in the general conference report, and it certainly did so on our appropriations, the D.C.…”