James Barcia: “I would again emphasize to the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary that, in fact, we are not…”

“I would again emphasize to the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary that, in fact, we are not mandating in this resolution nor in the Federal law that was passed in 1994 that States must do this, but for them to consider that. I do not know if we have a total, I would say to the gentleman, on what the effect or what the impact of violent crime is across the country, if we were ever to total up the cost. But in the case of Ms. Sherry Swanson, who is now 28 years old, and she was shot twice in the head when she was 20 years old working at a convenience store during a robbery attempt, and I know that her medical bills exceeded $1 million, plus her life has been forever changed. So yes, $800 million is a significant amount of money, and of course, as the gentleman knows, and the gentleman noted, I am a supporter of the balanced budget amendment and balancing our spending with our revenues in the Federal Government. I think we, as policymakers in this body, must make tough decisions on how we apportion out those limited resources that we have and certainly decide the priorities in terms of Federal spending. But I think violent criminals who are in and out of prison and hurting our fellow citizens are worthy of our attention and our resources.”