Political Quotes

“I was just in the Presiding Officer's chair and saw my colleague and my friend for whom I have a lot of respect, the Democratic whip, talking about some of the issues we are looking at right now, in particular, military spending and the appropriations we need to fund our military. He mentioned it was a priority. Certainly, it should be a priority. It is probably the most important thing we do here in the Congress. He said they are focused on it. We should all be focused on it. I just thought I would reply a little because I think the facts of what has been going on here on the floor of the Senate the last couple of years would make one skeptical of that claim that it has been a focus of theirs. Let me just give a few examples. I know the Presiding Officer is very familiar with all of these. In the last administration, from 2010 to 2016, military spending for the United States was cut by almost 25 percent. That was led by the previous President, despite the fact that there is no one who doubts that national security threats to our Nation have increased: We are going to cut defense spending by 25 percent-- when there are threats around the world, and we know what they are-- ISIS, Iran, China, and Russia. A lot of people like to talk about Russia, which is definitely a threat, but we are cutting defense spending by 25 percent. That makes no sense, but that is what has been going on.…”