[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 119 (Saturday, August 20, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
            REJECT THIS PORKED-UP CRIME BILL AND START OVER

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, it is an election year. How can you tell? 
Well, we are laboring mightily over a so-called Omnibus Federal Crime 
Control Act.
  This is my fourth election cycle in the U.S. Congress, and this is my 
fourth time with the biennial exercise on a crime bill. Are the streets 
one whit safer because of our past efforts in this area? No.
  Mr. Speaker, I say, if you like the failed Federal crime fighting of 
the last 20 years, you're going to love this bill. Yes, it's a little 
bit more expensive; in fact, it's the largest public works program to 
come down the pike in a long time; $10 billion for new prisons, but no 
money to run them. At $75,000 a prisoner per year, who is going to pay 
for that, and how are we going to pay for that?
  Mr. Speaker, this bill started out at $9.6 billion from the 
President. We delivered $33 billion to the President. We porked it up 
everywhere except where it might work: Police.
  We know that more police will work. We are contributing 20 cents on 
the dollar max for those extra so-called 100,000 police. We are not 
delivering 100,000 community police throughout the country through this 
bill. We are delivering a fraction of that, and the bill is rife with 
other problems.
  I say to my colleagues, ``We should reject this bill and start 
over.''

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