Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee for yielding. Let me at the very outset thank him for his leadership and cooperation in working through such a difficult bill at such a difficult time in our history. We are faced with a severe terrorist threat. We are also faced with severe fiscal restraints. Last year, I very reluctantly voted against the Homeland Security appropriations bill. I want to commend Chairman Rogers and Chairman Aderholt for working to resolve the good faith differences we had. For instance, in areas such as State and local grants, we increased them by $350 million to increase by 50 percent the amount allocated to the highest-risk areas in our country. The Urban Area Security Initiative, the State Homeland Security Grant Program, port security, transportation security--all of those programs were addressed in this bill. Nothing is ever as much as we want, but considering the realities we face as a Nation, Chairman Rogers and Chairman Aderholt have done an outstanding job. Coming from a district which lost so many people on September 11 and which still faces threats, and where we every day, quite frankly, analyze terror threat reports, this funding is extremely important, especially to the NYPD, which does such an outstanding job in spite of the gratuitous, mindless, shameless attacks made upon it by those in the media and by others in elected office as well.…”