Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise today to note that there are only a handful of my colleagues on the floor or in the body who were here when the precedent for this process was set in 1995. Some of my colleagues on this side of the room argue that we are setting a new precedent. We are not. Some of you remember 1994, when I came as a new Member in a special election. Some of you remember the economic chaos, the near collapse of the District of Columbia and the city of Washington. Some of you remember how we were told in those days that you can't go into certain parts of town because it is not safe. Some remember the stories about how a high percentage--if not almost half--the police cars wouldn't run at any one time. I remember waking up one July night and looking out the fifth-floor window of the apartment building I was in as the firemen were hosing down a spot not many paces from the corner of First and D Streets where someone had been killed, literally within hundreds of feet of the Federal campus. Washington, D.C., the District of Columbia, was about to collapse into chaos--1994. So what did we do in 1995? We passed a bill very similar to this. We set up a supervisory board that took control of the finances to help right the ship. For 2 years, there were tremendously painful decisions made here in Washington, D.C., at the municipal level; but after those 2 years, we had 4 years of balanced budgets, and the Control Act, as it was called, was suspended. It was successful.…”