This was a vote on an amendment offered by Rep. Price (R-GA) that would have removed $100 million from the funds provided in H.R. 2847 for the Department of Justice. This was the amount that President Obama had asked each cabinet officer to find in savings from his or her department. H.R. 2847 provided fiscal year 2010 funds to the Departments of Commerce and Justice and for federal science and other programs.

Rep. Price began his statement in support of his amendment by referencing the request that President Obama had made to his cabinet. He then noted that $100 million is the average amount the federal government spends every 13 minutes. Price argued that “it just makes sense, while the American people are struggling, while the American people are tightening their belts, while they're clamoring for us to be fiscally responsible and not spend any more of their money, to save $100 million . . . .” He said that it would be the “equivalent of a family that earns $40,000 cutting a dollar out of their budget.”

Rep. George Miller (D-CA), who was one of those leading the effort to pass H.R. 2847, opposed the amendment. He enumerated many of the programs in the Department of Justice and claimed: “(T)hese investments are absolutely necessary . . . what we are doing is reinvesting in the law enforcement infrastructure of this country on the border, in our cities, and in the issues of white-collar crime.” He then argued that the figures in the funding bill for the Justice Department were “carefully crafted as we consulted with people across the various jurisdictions within these institutions to make sure that we could, in fact, provide them to be secure and to serve the needs of this nation.”

The amendment defeated by a vote of 165-257. One hundred and fifty-three Republicans and twelve Democrats voted “aye”. Two hundred and thirty-six Democrats and twenty-one Republicans voted “nay”. As a result, no funds were removed from the amount in the bill that provided fiscal year 2010 funds for the Department of Justice.