Political Quotes

“I wish to speak this afternoon on a very important vote that we took today to move forward on the Defense authorization bill. I thought I would start by backing up a little bit. Last week we had the opportunity to vote on and talk about funding for our veterans and our troops. In addition to the Defense authorization bill that we voted on today to proceed to that, the votes we took last week were very important. They were very important to the country and certainly very important to my State--the great State of Alaska--which has a huge military presence, but also to our huge veteran population. We have probably the highest number of veterans per capita than any State in the Union. I am honored to have a good friend of mine, Representative Bob Herron, the majority whip in the Alaska House. He is in the Gallery today. He is also a marine. So he represents not only Alaska in our State Government but Alaska as a veteran, as a fellow marine. The American people want the Senate to be working again. We all know the country has huge challenges. I wish to speak about some national foreign policy challenges. We have a huge debt: $8 trillion. I think we are close to $19 trillion. We got downgraded in terms of our credit rating for the first time in American history. We can't grow the economy. We have huge challenges. For years the Senate was not working. It was not moving forward. Some would have called it dysfunctional.…”