Political Quotes

“I too join with our colleague from Oregon in raising great concern about what this proposal would do. This is a proposal--we have seen, actually, three of them now--that would cut all Federal funding for any community that has either defaulted or, more important, is at risk, has problems financially. What does that mean? It means that any city, any county, any local unit of government that is struggling with a tight budget could potentially lose all Federal funding. We are not talking about a bailout here. We are talking about the same Federal funds that go to every community--no funding for emergency services such as police departments and fire departments; no funding for transportation, for roads and bridges; cutting off funding for special education and for our schools; no funding for economic development to help these communities that are challenged because of, possibly, economic circumstances such as a shifting manufacturing base or other economic issues beyond their control. This is extremely broad. According to some legal definitions, ``default'' could mean anything--late payments on any kind of an obligation. It makes absolutely no sense. Let me also indicate that one of the real concerning problems here is that it would exempt emergency spending for a natural disaster. I appreciate that the Senator from Louisiana would want to do that given the fact that we had Hurricane Katrina hit in New Orleans and our whole country came together.…”