Political Quotes

“In listening to the remarks that we have just heard from the gentleman from Massachusetts, I was struck by the fact that so much of it had to do with things other than national defense. I said in the very beginning that this is the authorization of the defense of America. Those are important issues--health care, education, transportation--and we need to debate those, but not in this bill. That is why those sorts of amendments were not made in order. Madam Speaker, we are here today to debate the defense of the United States of America. I did hear the gentleman criticize the President's policy in Afghanistan, and I do think that we should consider at some point in time an appropriate AUMF for the conflict in Iraq. This House has been asking the leadership for briefings and other information about the proposed AUMF that we got from the administration, and we haven't received them yet, so we can't have the sort of deliberative-type review of his AUMF until we receive that information. I would say, as important as those issues are, they are not in order under this bill. This is a bill that we have historically adopted in a bipartisan fashion. Let's stay focused on the defense of the United States of America in this bipartisan bill and not wander off onto other things that we are either not prepared for or that are not in order under this bill.…”