[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 26 (Thursday, February 9, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2350-S2351]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EXTENSION OF MORNING BUSINESS

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Thomas). The time for morning business has 
expired.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I do not want to ask unanimous consent to 
continue morning business if my friends are ready to go on the bill. I 
do not want to do that. But, if they are in no hurry, I would ask 
unanimous consent to continue for another 15 minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, there others who are seeking time for 
morning business, including myself.
  How much more time does the Senator feel he needs?
  Mr. BIDEN. About 15 minutes.
  Mr. CRAIG. All right. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we 
be in morning business until 10:45 with 15 minutes allotted to the 
Senator from Delaware and 15 minutes allotted to the Senator from North 
Dakota, and the balance of the time for this side, until the hour of 
10:45.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. I thank my colleague from Idaho.
  Mr. President, with the New York City community policing, since they 
instituted community policing, murders have dropped 19 percent, 
robberies have dropped 16 percent, burglaries went down 11 percent, and 
auto thefts were reduced to 15 percent.
  In Tampa, FL, police committed themselves to moving crack dealers off 
the street corners and forged an unprecedented alliance with the 
citizens of the community to achieve that. Through a combination of 
standard buy-bust operations, new outreach to the community involvement 
of other city agencies and local media, the dealers have been driven 
off within a year and the streets within the targeted area returned to 
normal.
  In New Haven, CT, one of the most innovative police chiefs in the 
Nation, Nick Pastore, with his aggressive community policing effort, 
led to a 10-percent drop in serious crime in the year 1992, the last 
time we have the figures.
  Policing community techniques were introduced in the New York subway 
system 4 years ago, and the results have been phenomenal. Robberies 
have fallen by 52 percent. In the Inglewood section of Chicago, 
community policing is credited with a 6-percent decrease in violent 
crime last year.
  The new anticrime law enacted last year targets $8.8 billion in funds 
to State and local law enforcement to be used specifically to train and 
hire 100,000 community police officers across the Nation. Like 
community policing itself, this program works. Already, the Justice 
Department has awarded almost 15,000 new officers to State and local 
communities.
  All of these are local officers with no Federal control, no Federal 
mandate. These are local cops for which the Federal Government is 
kicking in $70,000 per cop.
  In short, in only the first 6 months following the passage of the new 
crime law, almost 15,000 new police officers will be on the street. So 
much for the critics who claim that the new crime bill would fund only 
22,000 police officers in 6 years. We have almost 15,000 that will be 
on the streets, new ones, in 6 months; not 22,000 in 6 years as our 
critics say. In fact, the law will fund 15,000, as I said, in the first 
6 months alone, and we will be well on the way by the time the first 
year is over to surpassing the 20,000 mark.
  The effectiveness of the cops program derives from its design. The 
cops program is a result of setting a precise goal, and enacting in a 
responsible program to achieve a precise goal. When he took office, 
President Clinton called on us to put 100,000 more police on the 
streets over the next 6 years.
  To put it another way, we have roughly 530,000 local police officers 
in all of America, State cops to town cops to county cops. At the end 
of the process, there will be 630,000 cops on the streets of America. 
Already, that number will be up by 15,000 at the end of the first 6 
months.
  So he asked us to put 100,000 cops on the street. We then designed a 
program that funds that effort and that effort alone. The Federal 
dollars were awarded for the sole purpose of hiring new police officers 
so that in 6 year's time America will have 635,000 police doing 
community policing.
  The position of this program stands in stark contrast to the 
Republicans' new law enforcement block grant which would spend roughly 
the same amount of Federal funds--to be specific, $8.5 billion--without 
guaranteeing a single, solitary additional cop back home. Read their 
proposal. Money is sent, not like it is now directly to a police 
department to hire a cop locally. Money will be sent to Governors back 
in our home States. With that money the Governor, out of that $8.5 
billion we are going to send to the Governors now--not to the police--
they will be able to hire or pay overtime to undefined law enforcement 
officers, or to procure equipment, technology or other material that is 
directly related to basic law enforcement functions, such as the 
detection or investigation of crime or the prosecution of criminals.
  That may sound fine on the surface. But let us look at it a little 
bit closer. Let us call this what I call the first weakness of the 
Republican change. I call it the officer loophole because the 
Republicans do not define law enforcement officers as career officers 
dedicated to enforcing the criminal laws, as it is defined in the Biden 
crime bill. Indeed, the Republicans do not define law enforcement 
officer at all in their new crime bill.
  Let us call the second weakness what I call the equipment loophole. 
The Republican proposal would fund any equipment or technology related 
to law enforcement functions, and those functions are specifically 
defined to include prosecution.
  These two loopholes mean that the Governor of a State who will get 
the money now--it will not go to your local police department. It is 
the same old bureaucracy that is going to be set up. Right now all the 
police department has to do, they do not have to go to get anybody's 
permission. They can make an application. Once they check with their 
local government, their local civilian officials and send an 
application directly to the Attorney General of the United States, and 
the Attorney General of the United States can send back directly the 
money to hire those new local cops. But now we are going back to the 
bad old days, which is the Governors sit there and say, This is what I 
want to do with the money. Send me the money. I will take care of it. 
The two loopholes I mentioned means that the State can spend all of 
their money to hire prosecutors,
 all their money to improve the court systems or anything related to 
law enforcement. Arguably, the money could even be used to hire 
officers to enforce the civil laws as well as the criminal laws in the 
State. For example, the Governor could use the money to hire public 
health officers; they could use the money to hire the public health 
officers to inspect restaurants and businesses.

  Equipment as defined by the Republicans could include not merely 
police equipment, which the new anticrime law already grants a portion 
of funds to provide for new equipment, but it could--in this case, they 
could use this money, which was heretofore only to 
[[Page S2351]]  be used to hire a cop, to buy computers for prosecutors 
or judges or telephone booths or lighting or whatever the Governor 
decided would relate to law enforcement functions. And 100 percent of 
the Federal funds could be used for this equipment, or to fund 
prosecutors, or to pay judge's salaries, without one single penny 
having to go to hire an additional cop.
  I support many of these functions. In the crime bill, for example, we 
provide for a significant amount of money to the States to hire State 
judges. We put in money for new equipment. But we segregate, in the 
present crime law, almost $9 billion. It says you must hire a sworn 
officer, that is somebody who is a criminal law enforcement officer. 
That is all you can do with the money now.
  This new law proposed by the Republicans will, in fact, guarantee 
that we will not get 100,000 cops on the street. I am opposed to 
replacing the program that guarantees 100,000 new cops on our streets 
with the proposal that could spend over $8 billion in Federal funds, 
without putting any new cops anywhere.
  The Republican proposal suffers from an additional fatal flaw. It 
requires no fiscal accountability or responsibility. I find this 
fascinating. They are talking about tightening the budget, tightening 
spending. Here they are going to take over $8 billion, with no 
accountability, and send it back to the States. Why do we not just have 
plain old revenue sharing? Why call this a crime bill? The bill uses a 
formula to simply hand out Federal funds to officials, with no strings 
attached and no accountability. That sounds great, does it not?
  Well, the anticrime law requires that States and localities match 
Federal grants with their own money. And this match requirement is not 
born out of a lack of generosity on the part of the author of the bill, 
me or anybody else who voted for it. The offer of $8.8 billion in 
Federal funds to assist what is purely a State and local function can 
hardly be characterized as not being generous. No, the reason I wrote 
in a match was to require accountability, a match required born out of 
experience.
  I started my career as a county councilman, and I know how local 
officials work. God bless them, they have a tough job. We would sit 
there in budget meetings when I was a county official, councilperson, 
and somebody would say, well we are going to buy a new park, or do this 
in the park, or we are going to add two more police, and I or somebody 
else would say, how much is that going to cost? I am not exaggerating 
when I say the answer would come back that it will not cost anything. 
Wait a minute, you just said we are going to hire two new cops. They 
said, that is Federal money. That is Federal money, and it is not going 
to cost anything. Well, it is my tax dollars.
  So I found when a county or city has to put up some money for a 
program, they think twice about whether or not they really want it. 
Remember the allegations in the old LEAA Program, where police 
departments are out buying Dick Tracy wristwatches, purchasing riot 
control gear in small towns that never even thought about a riot? In 
the LEAA Program, we went a long way to begin to work toward using our 
money wisely. We built in three key concepts. We targeted law 
enforcement to aid specific programs; required a match of one State or 
local dollar for every three Federal dollars that we spend, and 
required extensive State plans to explain what they are going to use 
the Federal dollars for. We do not demand that they do anything, except 
tell us what they are going to use them for.
  The resulting law was what we called the Byrne Grant Program, which 
is a predecessor to this crime bill, a fiscally responsible, well-run 
program that continues today. The same concept marks the essential 
elements of the anticrime law for 100,000 cops. In fact, we even 
improve the Byrne concept in one respect. We permit localities, not 
just Governors, to apply directly for the funds to ensure that the 
money gets where it is most needed.
  I think my Republican colleagues should go back and look at the 
experience of LEAA before they pursue their proposal of block grants 
for police and any other purpose. Their proposal is an $8.5 billion 
giveaway of Federal dollars with no specific goals, with loopholes, and 
loose language that would permit every cent to be spent without any 
increase in police on the streets to show for our investment at the end 
of the 5 years.
  In contrast, the anti-crime law enacted last year, which was 
bipartisanly constructed in the first instance, builds on the LEAA 
lessons. It sets specific goals, provides a simplified application, 
requires accountability for evaluation and matching requirements. In 
addition, the matching requirement is set up so the local share 
increases from year to year. In this way, we ensure that local dollars 
are to be used responsibly.
  I see my time is coming to a close. Those who say, wait a minute now, 
Biden, under your bill that is now law, you required the States to kick 
in money. I say, yes, that is right. They say, well, in our bill we do 
not. Well, I ask a rhetorical question. This bill they are going to 
offer is a block grant for 5 years. Say they go out and hire cops for 
the local communities with block grant money and we pay for all of it 
for 5 years; what happens at the end of 5 years? The Federal Government 
is guaranteeing that we are going to take over local law enforcement 
costs for the rest of eternity? Is that what we are saying? No. In 5 
years, the mayor has to go back to the taxpayers and say, hey, now we 
have 50 cops on the street, 10 are being paid for by Federal dollars. 
We no longer have those Federal dollars. Now I have to raise your taxes 
or cut the 10 cops.
  Is it not wiser to make that decision at the front end, where you 
have to go to the voters or your community and ask, do we want more 
cops? The Federal Government will give us $70,000 to start off here, to 
keep this cop for 5 years, and we are going to have to kick in probably 
$50,000 over that 5-year period. At the end of the process, we have to 
pick it up. What do you want to do? I think it is time we asked 
citizens to be as responsible as legislators should be and are not. 
That is, if you want to have more cops, it costs money, flat out. It 
costs money.
  The local officials should have the guts to go to their constituency 
and stop talking about how tough they are.
  Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho [Mr. Craig] is 
recognized.


                          ____________________