Haley Stevens: “I remind Senators we are going to come up on a series of votes soon. This bill is a bill the President asked us to move…”

“I remind Senators we are going to come up on a series of votes soon. This bill is a bill the President asked us to move quickly on to provide moneys for the ongoing events in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism. We are now being besieged by amendments for homeland security. As a matter of fact, we have been besieged by homeland security amendments as long as I can remember. The problem is, apparently there is an assumption here on the floor that the Federal Government is responsible for every single dime spent by any city or county or State in the interest of security. I always thought this was a mutual security society, and the cities and States and counties did what all they could do, and we would follow up and do the balance. Now it seems we are getting to the point where we are asked to provide each city, each State, each county with the full cost, not only of their systems for security against terrorism, but for their overtime. I again ask the Senate, how much overtime are the people out in the desert in Iraq getting? How much overtime are the people right here on the floor, who are going to be working late tonight, getting? And they are going to be working over the weekend. It is high time people realized, I will not support financing every city, every town, every county, every State for every dime they say they need for homeland security. I think we should wake up. There is just so much that can be put on the Federal taxpayer.”