[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 61 (Tuesday, May 17, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 17, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
 A PROPOSED LETTER TO HONORABLE NEAL SMITH, CHAIRMAN OF APPROPRIATIONS 
                              SUBCOMMITTEE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Strickland). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of February 11, 1994, the gentleman from New Mexico is 
recognized during morning business for 1 minute.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise to invite my colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle to cosign a letter with me to our colleague, the gentleman 
from Iowa [Mr. Smith], who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on 
Commerce, Justice, State, and Judiciary of the Committee on 
Appropriations.
  The purpose of this letter is to ask Mr. Smith not to follow the 
administration's recommendations in the Justice Department's proposed 
budget that would actually reduce the number of Federal personnel 
devoted to fighting crime. In the administration's proposed budget, 
there is a recommendation to lose personnel in the criminal division of 
the Department of Justice, to lose permanent positions in the Drug 
Enforcement Administration and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and 
even in the number of criminal prosecutors in the U.S. attorneys' 
offices around the country. At the same time, the administration 
proposed increasing the number of personnel in the antitrust division.
  Now, I have no opposition, of course, to prosecuting antitrust cases, 
but the President of the United States has very correctly and very 
strongly emphasized the need to prosecute the violent criminals in our 
society. And the President will not be able to do so without the tools 
to get that job done, both under the current law and under any new 
crime bill that we might pass.
  Therefore, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting a letter to 
Congressman Smith that would say at the very least, ``Don't cut the 
number of personnel devoted to criminal prosecution in the current 
fiscal year.''

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