Political Quotes

“last week, I was in Nevada and I visited a number of police stations and fire stations. Let me direct our attention to the Henderson Police Department that I met with. The chief, the deputy chief, and a number of police officers were there. It was time for a shift change. A number of hard-working police officers were there. I expected them to talk about homeland security and their obligations as first responders. They wanted to talk about that, of course, about the unfunded mandate passed on to police departments in Nevada and all over the country. Henderson, NV, is the second largest city in Nevada. By most standards, it is not really large--about 250,000 people. It is a suburb of Las Vegas, where I went to high school. They didn't want to talk about homeland security and first responders initially; they wanted to know what is happening to their overtime. That is what is on the minds of firefighters and police officers all over America. As has been established on the Senate floor in the last 2 days during the pendency of the Harkin amendment and efforts to deprive us of a vote on that, people in our country are very concerned about what this administration is doing regarding overtime. This affects about 8 million working men and women in this country. Specifically, it is directed to police officers, who I talked about; firefighters, who I have talked about; and nurses.”