Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman. Today I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by my good friend and colleague from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) as well as my good friend from Washington State. The committee zeroed out these funds because the administration appears to be expecting a blank check from the Congress to implement this treaty. The House, through the appropriation power, must have a chance to evaluate whether the implementation of a treaty and the manner in which an administration intends to implement a treaty is in the U.S. national security interest. That's the reason the 1042 report was required in the FY12 NDAA in the first place. I remind the House, this report is mandated by law. Are we really comfortable in this House with letting the President ignore the law of the land as he sees fit? Additionally, while the gentleman from Tennessee withdrew the amendment at the full committee level because the offset he selected was of concern, the offset he has now is also a problem. It takes a program in DARPA that has been eliminated recently, and the funds for that program are planned to support transition activities to two other DARPA programs. Diverting $50 million from this effort now would significantly slow down the schedule for these two programs. Additionally, we expect President Obama to announce, likely next week in Berlin, that he will seek to reduce our deployed nuclear forces by one-third--beyond the New START treaty reductions we have yet to put in place.…”