Political Quotes

“I rise in support of amendment No. 136, which creates a prohibition on funding for the Medium Extended Air Defense System, MEADS. This amendment is consistent with the House Appropriations, House Armed Services, and Senate Armed Services Committee positions to stop wasting taxpayer dollars on this bloated, inefficient program the Department of Defense doesn't even intend to buy. In February 2010, the Department of Defense stated in a memo, which is available online, that the program has ``encountered significant schedule and cost overruns since its inception in the 1990s.'' I want to stress that we have been investing in this system since the 1990s and it hasn't delivered. Billions and billions of dollars have been wasted. As far as I can tell, more than two decades later, all we have bought with those billions is full page ads in newspapers that Senators and staff read asking us to give more money to the program. It's time we stopped wasting valuable dollars on programs which do nothing for Americans, nothing for the warfighter and nothing to promote our national security. This is simple really. The amendment places a prohibition on further funds for the program. So I ask my colleagues, do you want to eliminate wasteful spending or not? Do you want to support warfighter needs or Pentagon pork?…”