Political Quotes

“I join Chairman Wolf in opposing this amendment. The amendment would increase Byrne grants by $50 million. That is the good news. No question about it. We would like to have more money for law enforcement. The offset would be a corresponding reduction to the 2010 decennial census by $50 million. It is totally unacceptable, Mr. Chairman. I go back to my original statement where I say that we are going to oppose a lot of amendments today that are good amendments except for the offset. This is really the wrong place for this offset, which I might add is still totally inadequate to Census Bureau funding to meet the needs of our communities, not to mention that the law enforcement uses census data to determine how to allocate manpower and equipment. An article by the Brookings Institute fellow Andrew Reamer speaks to this point, and I quote, crime mapping has emerged as a critical tool in ensuring that these scarce resources are used to the best effect. Crime mapping applications at the State and local level rely heavily on the Census Bureau's demographic and housing data. For State and local crime mappers, the Census Bureau has the single most important population and housing data at the neighborhood level. This bill has been carefully crafted. Fifty million dollars out of the Census Bureau is a lot of money, which we cannot afford. Remember, folks, we are moving to 2010 when we are going to do a new decennial census.…”