Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate and respect the gentleman from Colorado and his earnestness and all of what he has said today; and I do agree with him that there are many things that we need to debate on this floor and that we will be debating on this floor over the next 2 days. But let's make sure we don't lose sight of the central thing we are here to do, and that is to protect and defend the people of the United States. Yes, there are going to be some extraneous issues, issues that we wish we didn't even have to talk about; but at the end of the day, we are going to come back to that central function, that most important function that we have, and that is defending the people of the United States. Because of things that have happened before today, the readiness of our Armed Forces, the people we charge with the direct responsibility of defending us, the readiness has come down steadily. Planes can't fly. Armed vehicles can't drive. Weapons don't function. We don't have enough training for our troops. So we have listened to all of the uniformed commanders that have come before our committee and heard the dire circumstances we face all across the national defense of this country, and this bill begins to turn that around. It is not a big enough turnaround.…”