Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman and my colleagues of the Congress, this recommit motion takes, perhaps, up to $5 billion in unallocated funds and puts back into the cops on the beat program. Now, yesterday the new majority whispered a secret about this prison funding proposal on the floor today. They finally admitted that the truth-in-sentencing scheme would probably be so burdensome on the States that most would never qualify for it, and then the gentleman from Florida offered what I call a ``cover your back'' amendment saying that unexpended funds would be used for Federal law enforcement. This motion to recommit would allow those unexpended funds, which we are all sure will happen, to be used for the most important program we have in the crime bill, the cops on the beat program. Mr. Chairman, the President's police program is the single most desired crime-fighting response demanded by our citizens across the several States. The Republican majority is proposing to repeal the program and put in its place revenue sharing and a prison funding program that in the end will actually provide less money for prisons and not one guarantee for a single community policeman. People are afraid to go out of their houses to the corner store. The average response time in our neighborhoods to violent crime is getting longer and longer, and people, are demanding change. We can build all the prisons we want, but without police officers on the beat we will never apprehend them.”