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Remarks About a Special Message to the Congress on Special Revenue Sharing for Law Enforcement.

March 02, 1971

Ladies and gentlemen:

I am sending to the Congress today the first proposal for special revenue sharing, and it is in the field of law enforcement assistance.

This proposal is for $500 million and the Attorney General is here to answer your questions with regard to its scope and with regard to the various regulations that will be in effect insofar as the proposal is concerned.

This is the first that we have had of the special revenue sharing proposals and now you will have all of them by the end of this month.

On Thursday of this week, you will have the manpower assistance program, which will be a special revenue sharing program; and on Friday, we shall have the urban development program, and the other three before the end of the month.

We consider this a very appropriate one to be first, not only because we had the materials ready and the program ready to present but because this is an area where, above all others, it is vitally important that funds be provided for the States and the counties and the cities on an urgent basis for the protection of the lives and the property of people in the States and the cities and the counties.

When we think of law enforcement, too often we think of it at the Federal level. We must remember, of course, that the great proportion of crime is not in Washington, D.C., at the Federal level--Washington, D.C., is a special responsibility of the Federal Government but it is out in the cities, in the States, in the counties where the Federal Government does not have responsibility.

And this program of $500 million, a proposal that the Attorney General will now describe for you, deals directly with that problem. It is perhaps the most effective proposal---it is one which we are building on, building from the past, the most effective proposal for getting at what is called "street crime," the kind of crime that directly affects the individual more than any other.

Note: The President spoke at 11:01 a.m. in the Briefing Room at the White House.

On the same day, the White House released the transcript of a news briefing by Attorney General John N. Mitchell on the message.

Richard Nixon, Remarks About a Special Message to the Congress on Special Revenue Sharing for Law Enforcement. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/240829

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