[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12398-12399]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     DEMOCRATS WORK TO MAKE AMERICAN STREETS SAFER BY PASSING COPS 
                            IMPROVEMENT ACT

  (Mr. SIRES asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. SIRES. Madam Speaker, our most important job as lawmakers is to 
ensure the safety of the American people.
  Our local law enforcement officers serve communities across this 
Nation

[[Page 12399]]

as the first line of defense against crime. The number of police on our 
streets matters for the security of every city in this Nation, and we 
have a responsibility to ensure that these officers are in place. That 
is why Congress worked with President Clinton in the 1990s to create 
the COPS program.
  Through this program, more than 100,000 cops were hired, putting 
police in every neighborhood in our Nation. But when President Bush 
came to office, he eliminated the COPS program, with no objections from 
the old Republican rubber-stamp Congress. As a result, crime 
substantially increased over the last decade.
  Madam Speaker, today this Congress has an opportunity to reverse 
these troubling trends by passing the COPS Improvement Act. This 
legislation would allow communities to hire 50,000 police officers over 
the next 6 years so we can better protect our communities.

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