Frank Lautenberg: “we are listening to quite a tirade against giving money to the high-threat areas. The question is raised, Why? When you…”

“we are listening to quite a tirade against giving money to the high-threat areas. The question is raised, Why? When you go to a hospital and you have a sick patient, someone who is really in trouble, he or she will be among the first to receive the medication. That is the situation about which we are talking. We lost 3,000 people on September 11, 2001 most of them in New York. This is the focal point for economic activity--probably the most important financial center in the entire world. We look at the cities of Philadelphia and New York and there is New Jersey, right in the middle, with lots of commuters. We lost 700 innocent citizens on that day. We have $29 billion going into homeland security but we need more. I know where to take it from: Take it from the huge tax cut that was given to those who do not need it. For goodness' sake, the first round of emergency response grants had New Jersey and New York among the least compensated on a per capita basis. Our populations are squeezed together. New Jersey has the highest population density of all the States in the country. We have all kinds of important facilities, beside harbors and the financial center, that affect the way our country functions. To say, you got enough money, that's just not right.…”