Steve Buyer: “Reclaiming my time, they chose not to enhance the penalties. So what I am saying here is I agree with your point about…”

“Reclaiming my time, they chose not to enhance the penalties. So what I am saying here is I agree with your point about reverent, I agree with your point about deference. What we have here, though, are victims in our society who are asking the Congress to respond. We did it in the 1994 crime bill, whether it was three-strikes-and-you're-out. We have also done it with this bill on increasing the penalties. We asked them to take a look at increasing the penalties against the most vulnerable in our society, the children and the elderly, and they chose not to increase it. So when they chose not, I think it is now very appropriate and I applaud the gentleman from Michigan for bringing the bill. I am also concerned, though, on how this bill in fact is getting saddled down with a lot of other things. The point of the gentleman from North Carolina is very well taken. But I do not believe we should be redirecting the Sentencing Commission to do that which is highly predictable, which they will do, and that is, they are not going to take the action. I think the impetus for the legislation is in fact their failure to act and we are now telling them what they have to do. His amendment in fact kills this bill, and I agree with the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice that we must vote down the Watt amendment.”