Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. COHEN. Willie Sutton would love it if the cops weren't trying to protect the banks--that would be great--but the cops are important.

Mr. Chairman, my first job out of law school was as an attorney for the Memphis Police Department. One of the first things I learned is that the best deterrent to crime is patrol, and patrol is policemen on the beat. That is the most effective way to reduce crime. When you have high unemployment, when you have a great recession like we've experienced with high unemployment, crime naturally does go up. When you have crime go up, you need more cops to protect property and individuals and lives.

This COPS program has been successful. It was successful in the 1990s, and we saw a tremendous decrease in crime. As Mr. Weiner pointed out--and I praise him for being a champion of this for so many years--this has been an effective program that has saved lives and property, that has kept insurance rates down, and that has kept order and liberty in our country.

Willie Sutton would not be for this amendment. He'd like to see the cops off the streets, away from the banks, away from the widows, away from the children, away from everybody who is in the arms of a potential crime, in the way of a potential crime, and that's something we shouldn't have in this country.

The cost to get rid of this program would be tremendous. The fact is the COPS program saves money, and this amendment zeros out the COPS program. It isn't a simple change in eliminating some of the moneys. It eliminates the program, and that's a mistake.

Local police are struggling with shrinking budgets. Tax rates are down as people have spent less money, so we don't have the money to support our police and to keep our law enforcement at the levels they should be. To cut police and law enforcement is a mistake, a serious mistake that's going to cost the American people.

You can't put it down in dollars and cents. Lives will be lost. Property will be lost. Insurance rates will go up. This is one place among others, but particularly here, they're the first line of defense. Of the police powers of the State, the first one is safety.

There are other areas where you could save money. If you want to keep the budget and cut it, there are a lot of defense programs that could be cut. There are defense programs that are not effectively keeping us safe from foreign problems or from foreign adversaries, but our streets in every city in this Nation and every hamlet has the need for police. To cut this COPS program is simply irresponsible, and it disregards the American public's regard and need for safety on the streets and for safety in their communities. We should support our police and make our streets safer.

I would ask that we support this amendment. I would ask that the people on the other side understand that law enforcement is a primary concern of government and that a reduction of this program or the elimination of this program will cost the American public dearly, and lives will be lost.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. COHEN. I'm pleased to offer this amendment, of which many members of the Judiciary Committee have worked on behalf of legal services in the past. Many members of the Judiciary Committee have championed legal services over the years, none greater than Bobby Scott, who's been a member of the committee for some time, and the current ranking member, Mr. Conyers, Mr. Nadler, Ms. Jackson Lee and others.

Legal services is so important to giving people representation, and this amendment will restore $70 million that's being cut from the Legal Services Corporation. That's 17 1/2 percent of the money legal services got in the past. Legal services is already woefully underfunded. If you look at the funding they've gotten over the last 30 years and prorate it, they've been behind in funds for a long time, and we've tried to make that up in the past years. Right now they turn away half of all eligible clients who seek assistance. Slashing these funds would make it even worse. And the fact is, in these dire economic times, some of the worst we've seen, although they're getting better, more and more people need legal services.

The housing crisis is not over with, and one of the major areas they work with is people who are having problems with foreclosures because of unscrupulous loans that they've been given, and there will be more and more people losing their homes or potentially losing their homes needing legal services. And if they don't have legal representation and they lose those homes, neighborhoods are hurt, individuals are hurt, and that is a major cost on the economy.

The executive director of Memphis Area Legal Services, Harrison McIver, said the cuts would be devastating to Memphis Area Legal Services, and it would be devastating to their capacity to remain an effective advocate and resource for low-income individuals with all the civil legal problems that they may have. It would require laying off at least five attorneys and taking 725 fewer cases.

Memphis Area Legal Services, as other legal service clinics, help victims of domestic violence, as well as with protective orders from abusive partners, as well as assisting folks with foreclosures and elderly people who have been victimized by predatory lenders. Think about how many victims of domestic abuse will be in danger without access to the courts, how many families will become homeless without this foreclosure assistance, and how many seniors would fall prey to predatory loans without legal help. How many of our vulnerable citizens will have the courthouse door closed in their face?

The fact is, Mr. Chairman, that legal services is more needed in dire economic times than at any other time. And I understand the majority's positions about saying they were elected to make cuts. They weren't elected to make cruel cuts that hurt the most vulnerable people in situations that aren't of their own making, and who fall prey to predatory lenders or abusive spouses or people who prey on seniors in abusive ways. This is targeting the most vulnerable people in our society.

I realize that there isn't an offset on this, and I realize the reason Mr. Wolf has made his point. I understand, too, somewhat, and feel a little bit of kinship with the Roman gladiators who, when they went into the field of combat, told the emperor that, We who are about to die salute you. And knowing kind of what the situation is, I also understand that ave imperartor moriture te salutant.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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