Orrin Hatch: “I want to personally congratulate and express my appreciation to the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, who…”

“I want to personally congratulate and express my appreciation to the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, who helped to establish this Byrd amendment, and the distinguished Senator from Texas, from whom the idea came to begin with. We are talking about whether or not we are going to make a difference against crime in this country. Everybody here knows that the President, without this amendment, is going to have to abide by the budget formulated by OMB that cut the FBI, cut the DEA, cut the Justice Department, and cut the prosecutors at a time when we are all talking about trying to do something about crime. Now, I know the President would prefer to have this amendment; so would anybody who wants to be serious about crime. This is the way to pay for it and it comes right out of Vice President Gore's suggestion. It took a very ingenious set of Senators to come up with this methodology of paying for our anticrime bill. We all know what the big ticket items on that bill are going to be. I think both Democrats and Republicans have worked very hard on this crime bill and it would be absolutely tragic if we pass a great, big, grandiose, important, workable crime bill and then not put the moneys there so it can work.”