Department Of Defense Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, I rise briefly this evening to speak about this amendment. The amendment would help maintain, in fiscal year 2010, the current level of funding for the National Guard's counterdrug efforts throughout the United States. It is important legislation.

As a Governor, as a mayor, I can tell you what I think everybody knows. One of the toughest problems we face in this Nation is fighting drug abuse and addiction and putting the tools in place to deal with that.

We all know firsthand that drug addiction rips families apart and tears communities down. It is accompanied by an endless parade of violence.

Reducing drug abuse and crime was a top priority of mine as mayor and Governor. In part because of steps we took, we were able to bring crime numbers down. I am proud of that.

I know drugs are not a unique challenge to Nebraska. It is a national challenge. Meth distributors commonly commit violent crimes as they traffic in methamphetamine. Meth users often commit property crimes, burglary, and identity theft. This drug is an enormous burden on public health departments and treatment centers in our region. Meth-related violence and child abuse have also strained local foster care systems, not only in our State but in other States. Because of its highly addictive nature, it takes longer treatment programs and it has a very high recidivism rate. Treatment, needless to say, is enormously difficult.

In the face of this problem, we need to keep up our pressure on drug trafficking groups and work on providing more consistent funding to Federal, State, and local drug task forces. The National Guard's Counterdrug Support Program has been supporting law enforcement and community-based drug reduction coalitions now for 20 years. However, this program often faces considerable uncertainty over its funding, and that hampers operations. Consistent funding would allow police to keep many of the same officers in the drug task force. This would improve communication between multiple different law enforcement agencies, and it would increase their effectiveness.

Rural States are especially hurt by cuts and uncertainty in their counterdrug budgets, since they often have a great deal of territory to cover with very small departments.

To get to the crux of this amendment, my amendment would help address these problems by helping restore counterdrug funding back to its level last year. We are just asking for a level budget. Last year, Congress added $22.5 million to the President's level of funding. The year before it added $20 million. While the Defense authorization this year authorized an additional $30 million in counterdrug support, it was not included in the appropriations bill.

This money goes across our country, all 50 States, and some of our territories. Our counterdrug operations depend on the funds.

If the current shortfall continues, the National Guard would not be able to effectively support law enforcement in their fight against drugs. Our law enforcement and National Guard personnel must be given the tools they need to carry on this battle.

Tonight, in a very large appropriations bill, I ask what I believe is a very necessary amount of money to help fight this war on drugs in your State, Mr. President, in mine, and across this country. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment. My hope is there will be a very bipartisan, strong statement that we stand behind this very important piece of this budget.

For the record, if it is acceptable--and I don't know if there is an agreement on this or not--but I want to indicate for the record that I will be more than happy to move this amendment with a voice vote.

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Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, then I do raise an objection. And here is the point, in fairness to the process here. There are many who believe that the TARP money, which was originally designed to buy toxic assets, has drifted so far away from its original purpose that we haven't kept faith with the taxpayer who paid the bill for all this. On the other hand, the stimulus--which, incidentally, I did not support--

had money in it to do highways and that sort of thing, and that is where the objection is coming from.

So I do stand to object, and I continue the objection.

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Mr. JOHANNS. I thank the Senator from Illinois for that question, but here is what I would say. You can restart the debate on the whole stimulus plan, and I can point to you the promises that were made of all the jobs that were going to be created, and I can point to you the evidence that in fact that has not occurred. But the argument tonight was, look, if we can just get our hands on some TARP money, then we can do all these things. And we are saying, well, look, if the promise of the stimulus was to create jobs, let's use the stimulus. Why not use that fund?

But fundamentally here is the problem. People came to the American people and said: Look, our credit is melting down, our financial system is in serious shape, and the solution to that problem is to buy toxic assets. And low and behold we bought car companies, we bailed out insurance companies, and it just goes on and on. And that is why the objection is coming from over here because this isn't anything near what TARP was intended to do.

I thank the Chair.

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