Chuck Schumer: “I remind my colleagues how important homeland security is, how we have to fight a good offense. Praise God, it seems as…”

“I remind my colleagues how important homeland security is, how we have to fight a good offense. Praise God, it seems as if that is going quite well in Iraq. It is also very important for us to fight defense and we have not been doing an adequate job. I believe Senator Cochran will offer an alternative version later on today, but I would make two points about the Schumer amendment as opposed to the Cochran amendment. One is that the Cochran amendment is not as generous, as I understand it. I have just received it. It is even in this fiscal year, the 2003 fiscal year, when our police officers, our firefighters are hurting from one end of the country to the other, when our port security is not what it should be, when our rail security is not what it should be, the Cochran amendment is considerably lower. I am sure if my colleagues go back and ask their police and fire departments which amendment they prefer, it is the Schumer amendment. Second and more important, we have close to a $700 billion tax cut. We also have programs on education, on health care, on transportation, the FBI and everything else. The alternative amendment cuts every one of those.”