Joe Cunningham: “I live in D.C. and have for some time. I have sat and I have talked to residents, many of them minorities, and many…”

“I live in D.C. and have for some time. I have sat and I have talked to residents, many of them minorities, and many saying to me we need help for years and years and years. When we look at the school systems, we look at the economy, we look at the Anacostia River, the sewage systems, the crime, the drugs and the lack of response, they would say, I know you are a Republican, we are Democrat, but would you help us? I think this committee has done a lot in the last few years. I say to my colleagues that for 30 years my D.C. was kind of an anachronism, that there was not that help and we let the D.C. rule, but then we had a mayor that ended up putting more cocaine up his nose than worrying about the economy of his own city. The good news is that Mayor Williams is trying to work with us and do many of the things that we are trying to do for this city. I lived by the train station and in one year, my car was broken into twice. I heard a gunshot out my driveway, a young man was caught and said he just wanted to know what it felt like to kill somebody. Two of the women in my complex were mugged going into a locked gate. There is a grocery store, the little mom and pop store, across the street was robbed six times in one year. The residents were saying, we have to live in this, can you do something, Mr. Congressman. Our children, the roofs on their schools are falling apart. And my colleagues will remember they had to cancel schools. We fully funded schools.…”