Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, I rise today because I want to express my concern that I think of the House of Representatives as a place that involves a lot of critical thinking about the work that we do, but the continuing resolution in front of us is neither critical nor thoughtful. It eliminates the COPS program. Let me tell you about the COPS program, not just around the country where it's going to result in firing 1,330 law enforcement officers, but in one of the counties that I represent where we have had, unfortunately, 18 homicides since the beginning of the year, where we need every law enforcement officer on the beat. Fifty of those officers come from the COPS program. We would lose those officers under this continuing resolution. Looking at the firing of our firefighters, these are firefighters, first responders out there whenever they're called in every one of our communities across the country, 2,400 of them. Sometimes, Madam Chair, we speak in numbers that are so extraordinary that ordinary Americans don't understand them. But I think with respect to this continuing resolution, ordinary Americans understand that under the resolution 200,000 students--that's pre-kindergartners--will be kicked out of Head Start just when we need to give these students a start so that we can grow them and educate them so they're competitive in the 21st century. We're not doing that.…”