Political Quotes

“My amendment is very straightforward. It would simply reduce the overall funding for the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Transportation by $389,000. This office is one of 13 in the underlying bill which are slated to receive increases for administrative expenses, despite the fiscal emergency that we're currently facing. The passage of this amendment would simply bring this account back to fiscal year 2012 levels. I see my good friend from Texas, Sheila Jackson Lee. She knows we have fought together very hard for civil rights and civil liberties here in this House, in committee as well as on the floor, and believe very strongly that we need to protect our civil liberties and our civil rights. But the simple truth is that we're broke as a Nation, and this amendment would just simply keep funding at the current level instead of raising it. It would just turn it back--what's proposed in the underlying bill--to the current level of spending, but not reduce any functions of this office. It would not prohibit this office from doing any of its work. It would help, in a small way, to put us back into a more realistic fiscal state as a Nation because, Mr. Chairman, we just have to stop spending money that we don't have. It's across the board. Every bureau, every office, every bit of the Federal Government needs to not have increases in their costs to the taxpayer, not have further borrowing of money that we just don't have.…”