Jon Kyl: “on May 24, I voted for H.R. 2206, but I am disappointed that it took so long to complete work on this legislation, while…”

“on May 24, I voted for H.R. 2206, but I am disappointed that it took so long to complete work on this legislation, while we have troops deployed and under fire fighting against an enemy that, as few others have in history, seeks our total destruction. For 108 days, the majority held up vital funding for our troops' equipment and training. All this time, the majority was playing politics with this funding, even sending to the President a bill that they knew would be vetoed. And this is not my analysis; we know this through the Democrats' own words. Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said, ``We are going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war.'' And ``well, it doesn't matter what resolution we move forward to. You know, I can count. I don't know if we'll get 60 votes. But I'll tell you one thing, there are 21 Republicans up for reelection this time.'' So, with that in mind, we finally received the final version of the security supplemental at 8 p.m., the last night before the Memorial Day work period. While Democrats finally decided to listen to our generals and not MoveOn.org and yielded to Republicans' demand to exclude an arbitrary withdrawal date, this bill still has serious flaws. A policy that would potentially restrict the very economic reconstruction funds that are necessary to achieve the political and diplomatic solution General Petraeus says we need represents bad public policy, to say the least.”