Political Quotes

“This amendment is about unfunded mandates. It is about the reality that the legislation before us represents a staggering transfer of administrative costs and cost shift of programs from the Federal Government to the States and local communities in which legal aliens are resident. The National Conference of State Legislatures, in examining just 10 of the literally scores of programs that will be covered by this act, has found that the cost to the States in those 10 programs is $744 million per year. The total cost could be into the billions. The amendment that I have offered is a modest attempt to deal with that. It basically says, first, that if a Federal agency, State, or local government can make a determination that the cost savings of following the procedures of S. 1664 are less than the costs to administer the program, it would not be necessary to implement the program.”