Political Quotes

“this amendment has many good features. It reduces funds going to the World Bank by $28 million. It reduces foreign military aid by $26 million. It reduces the ICC by $10 million. I do not know anyone the ICC helps, other than those who work for it. It reduces land acquisition funds by $189 million. The Federal Government owns almost one third of our land already, and cannot even take good care of what it now has. Most of the savings, over $1.5 billion, come from the 252,000 reduction in Federal employees which has been advocated by President Clinton himself. Almost all of these reductions are things that the overwhelming majority of our constituents would reduce or cut if given the chance to do so. However, I need to mention one specific reduction. The amendment reduces the amount for new Federal buildings by $160 million. Former Mayor Koch of New York said this in a recent column: The federal government is nutty. Given the collapse of the commercial real estate market, vacancy rates are in the double digits in many cities, as high as 25 percent in New York City. So why is the federal government building new federal office buildings in Atlanta, Philadelphia, New York and elsewhere to house government agencies instead of renting or purchasing existing space? It brings to mind the old line, ``I'm from the government and I'm here to help you. This is a relatively small cut percentagewise.…”