Political Quotes

“I yield myself the balance of my time. Let me just say that two successive administrations, one Republican, one Democrat, have either called for eliminating or severely reducing the funding that goes to the NDIC because, as we have heard before, the programs are duplicative, wasteful. And there is no doubt that some good work goes on there. Nobody is disputing that. But there is also good work that goes on at the ONDCP or the DEA or other drug enforcement agencies or other agencies that have that as part of their portfolio. That's the problem here. For years and years, we have been funding programs just because a particular powerful Member of this body or somebody sought an earmark or several earmarks or earmarks over a series of years to fund particular institutions or programs. That's what we have here. That's the legacy we are left with here. And we are simply trying to say enough is enough. We have got to save money somewhere. And if we can't do it with a program like this, where can we do it? When are we going to get serious about this debt and deficit that we have? So that's what we're doing here. The reason we're doing it on this is because we're seeking to strike authorization. As we know, if we don't have authorization for a program, it's more difficult for that program to be funded. Believe me, we will be back in the appropriations process to go after this funding as well, but we thought we ought to go here. This was ruled in order. It is germane to the bill.…”