Bill Pascrell: “I just want to say to Frank Wolf: you are good man, and I wish you the best of luck. You raised the respect of this…”

“I just want to say to Frank Wolf: you are good man, and I wish you the best of luck. You raised the respect of this institution, and that is pretty difficult to do nowadays, Frank. I wish you the best of luck. As cosponsor of this amendment, along with some others, I want to thank all of those folks who came aboard. We have to struggle every 2 or 3 years. I think it is the responsibility that we, in some way, support our local communities, our county sheriff departments. The COPS program has been a great success. In fact, the two most effective and efficient programs in the Congress of the United States are the COPS program and the fire program--FIRE Act. We know where every dime is going, we know how it is spent, but we certainly couldn't accept a 61 percent cut for a fiscal year. So this is going to allow us, Madam Chair, to hire over 1,000 police officers. God knows we need them. When we take our oaths, some of us who have had good fortune every 2 years, God willing, the first thing we talk about is defending the United States, defending the Constitution, and defending against attacks from the outside, as well as inside. We have an obligation and responsibility. So we are taking this very, very seriously. The gentleman from Washington and I were the cochairs of public safety in the Congress, and we work on this all year around, not just budget time.…”