Bill Clinton: “I hope we will have an even larger bipartisan coalition supporting this legislation, working with us, perhaps even…”

“I hope we will have an even larger bipartisan coalition supporting this legislation, working with us, perhaps even convincing the Government agencies responsible for letting these contracts to think very hard about the process they are now following. Again, I thank my colleague from Oregon and my colleague from Maine for providing such leadership. It is a pleasure to work with them. But it is also a duty. I think all of us feel a heavy responsibility to make sure the billions and billions of dollars--maybe as much as $100 billion that will be spent on reconstructing Iraq--is spent in the most effective way. Because, while we are looking at the extraordinary costs of this kind of task awaiting us in Iraq, we are also in this body hearing from our constituents, as many of us did over the previous 2 weeks, about what is happening to their schools, what is happening to their hospitals. So we have to be especially conscious that this money can be justified; that we can look our constituents in the eyes when they say, I don't understand, Senator. I thought we were going to get more help for our poor schools. Senator, I don't understand. Our hospital has just closed down because we can't get enough reimbursements from the Federal Government. This is not only about all of the good government principles. It is not even only about the integrity and credibility of our government. It is about the choices that are being made.…”