Steven Schiff: “when the President released his budget yesterday to the Congress and to the American people, the administration touted…”

“when the President released his budget yesterday to the Congress and to the American people, the administration touted the fact that there was a proposal to eliminate approximately 100 programs that the administration felt were no longer necessary, totaling approximately 3rac{1}{4} billion dollars' worth of spending. One of these programs was a program of the Department of Justice, and even though this was only one program, the spending on this one program at $358 million a year makes up more than 10 percent of this entire cut. Now what was this program that the administration proposes to eliminate from the Department of Justice? This is the main program that provides grants to aid State and local law enforcement agencies for the arrest and prosecution of dangerous criminals. Mr. Speaker, only a week or so before this in this Chamber, the President of the United States said that fighting crime was a major objective of his administration this year, and that included helping State and local law enforcement agencies, because as we all know, it is they who bear the great brunt of this fight. It seems to me that this proposal in the budget release yesterday to eliminate the main grant and aid program to State and local law enforcement agencies contradicts the stated goal of the administration to help fight crime.”