Political Quotes

“I rise, as a member of the subcommittee, to speak in opposition to the amendment but with the highest respect for the unity from the New York and New Jersey delegations. It certainly transcends party, and I love New York. The older I get, the more I love it. And I especially love the way that they all pulled together after September 11 and continue to stick together on important national priorities such as this. But I just want to make a couple of points. We had well over 50 hearings at the subcommittee, we have had in the last year and 5 months. Many of these are highly classified or even at the top secret level. And while I am not going to talk about anything that is talked about, we have to assume, we have to assume, that terrorists plotting a future attack may very well commit that attack on several fronts simultaneously and certainly not just in an urban setting. For instance, in the foothills of east Tennessee after September 11 people felt relatively safe and secure even within days of the attack because they did not live in a highly populated area. We must assume that the terrorists in the future will want every American, regardless of where they live, to be afraid and to live in fear because that is their weapon is fear. These grants under the formula are heavily weighted towards population. But they are not heavily weighted towards infrastructure targets.”