it was over 10 years ago that I introduced legislation--probably the first net neutrality legislation introduced in the Congress--along with Congressman Rick Boucher in 1999

We are the key, I think, to the strategic balance in that region.

these are people who have been told since the day they came into the military that they're going to have health care for the rest of their lives.

lifetime health care for career military people--was part of a moral contract.

I recommended the creation of this position in 1985 in a memorandum to Caspar Weinberger.

There are military cultures and there are cultures within the military cultures.

I think this is a great fit and I will be a very strong supporter and hope to be working with you on some of these issues in the near future.

Politics is the art of the possible.

I am kind of sending the shot over the bow that it is really time, after 6 or 8 years, for the industries to get together and sit down and work out their differences on these issues so that we can move patent reform forward.

We are with you on that, too.

With $150 billion in taxpayer funds already spent propping up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and hundreds of billions more a possibility, it is clear that this will be the most expensive Federal bailout in response to the financial crisis.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We have to make decisions about budgeting and make decisions about strategic needs of this nation.

Chairman Hastings, thank you for holding this important oversight hearing.

It is absolutely unacceptable to get a 30-year shipbuilding plan or a 30-year aviation plan after the point where this body makes decisions.

I would again make my appeal to the President, to the Press Corps, be public. Don't namby pamby, don't walk on egg shells.

The Obama administration has put this up at a higher priority because it is so important.

I wonder if, when the toasts are made later on tonight and there is all of this hoopla around a state dinner that all of that kind of like simmers into the background and what message have we sent?