John Cornyn: “The President requested in his budget $73,800,000 for State and local grants. And according to the Department of…”

“The President requested in his budget $73,800,000 for State and local grants. And according to the Department of Justice, in order for Project Safe Neighborhoods to continue as a flagship gun crime reduction initiative, the $73.8 million dedicated to the Project Safe Neighborhoods State and local grant program, is essential. The State and local grants are critical to the success of the President's Project Safe Neighborhoods program. The grants support the removal from our streets and our neighborhoods of these criminals who use guns to carry out their crimes. The idea did not start in Washington. Indeed, the first program of its kind saw enormous success in Richmond, VA, where crime was significantly reduced as gun crime prosecutions increased substantially. When I was Attorney General of Texas, I joined with then-Governor Bush to launch Texas Exile, modeled after Richmond's Project Exile. This Texas program also met with extraordinary success, providing local prosecutors the funds necessary to get more than 2,000 guns off the streets, and to issue more than 1,500 indictments for gun crimes. This resulted in almost 1,200 convictions during the first 3 years of the program's existence. When President Bush came to Washington, he built upon our success in Texas by making Project Safe Neighborhoods one of his top priorities.…”