Burgess Owens: “the serious problems we face with the African-American community in most inner cities, one of the problems is no jobs.…”

“the serious problems we face with the African-American community in most inner cities, one of the problems is no jobs. But I think more important than the fact that there are no jobs is the drug problem, which is more devastating, because the drug problem leads to criminal activity, including murder. The drug problem decimates families. The drug problem leaves a legacy of babies. We are back to a problem of babies in the hospitals who are being abandoned, and many of these babies have problems as a result of their mothers being addicted, and there are high health costs. It devastates the community in many ways. Mr. Speaker, we have had people on the one hand in the housing projects call for a National Guard to intervene in order to deal with the fact that the housing projects, certain projects are inundated with drug dealers. At the same time, other factions within the housing projects would be very much against it because it is their sons, their sons who are involved in the drug trade. It is a problem that is interwoven so much into the community until you cannot separate it out. There is a lot of money flowing from the drug dealers that is held out to people for investment, and on and on it goes. They are in charge. They are the kingpins. They have an infrastructure now. What started with the Nicaraguan trade and the encouragement of the CIA, the CIA does not have to be involved anymore.…”