Eliot Engel: “I do not mean to denigrate the good work that has been done on this bill. There are a lot of people who have done a lot…”

“I do not mean to denigrate the good work that has been done on this bill. There are a lot of people who have done a lot of good work, and it is very, very hard, and the point has been made that we are not funding homeland security to the extent that we should. But the American people know the difference between what is necessary and where the threat is, and the difference between that and pork, and quite frankly, we should not be using this bill to spread the wealth around, this pork, so each of us can go back to our districts and say we produced a little bit for our constituents. We should put the money where the threat is. I really have to vehemently disagree with the idea that States with virtually no threat of a terrorist attack are getting as much as $20 more per capita than New York gets. That is illogical, it is unfair and it makes no sense whatsoever. I rise in strong support of this amendment. This allocates more money for the Urban Security Initiative which would send more preparedness dollars to high threat areas.”