Political Quotes

“the gentleman knows that I have the greatest respect and friendship for him and for all the tremendous work that he does in this body. But I must rise and oppose this across-the- board cut. First of all, I oppose across-the-board cuts generally because they are indiscriminate, and I think anybody who supports across-the-board cuts has to admit that the cuts are bound to affect some good programs, even in their judgment, as well as adversely affect programs that the author of the amendment may not fully appreciate. Having said that, I hope that the body judges this amendment in the same way it has in past years and on other bills and expresses its concern for the offering of across-the-board cuts generally. But having said that, I think that if the gentleman is not successful, if he does not prevail on his amendment, he should feel good for the same reasons I feel bad about this bill, and that is that it represents a huge number of cuts much greater than 1 percent on programs that I consider to be extremely worthy and that I would hope the chairmen of the sub and full committees, as well as ranking, would consider the same. NASA is increased by 2 percent, the Justice Department by 4 percent, and the FBI by 10 percent. That is the good news. Federal law enforcement programs have increased. Almost everything else in the bill has decreased a lot more than 1 percent. State and local law enforcement experienced a 22 percent reduction.…”