Political Quotes

“First, let me thank Congressmen Polis, Blumenauer, Conyers, and Schrader, who have joined me in offering this amendment. Our amendment is very straightforward. It would trim Pentagon spending by a very modest 1 percent. The Congressional Budget Office estimates our amendment would result in a reduction of discretionary spending of $5.9 billion, and it does so while maintaining our national security and protecting our Active Duty military personnel. This Defense appropriations bill is $28.1 billion more than the Pentagon's current funding level, which includes $5 billion more than the President's request for war spending in the Overseas Contingency Account. In total, this bill includes over $85 billion in war spending at a time when the majority of the American people and a growing bipartisan group in Congress are calling for an expedited end of military activities in Afghanistan. Our amendment simply takes the total amount in the bill, reduces that amount by 1 percent, and then allows the Department of Defense to choose what accounts to take the reduction from. As I mentioned before, military personnel accounts and medical and health care programs are exempt from this amendment. Mr. Chairman, month after month we have been talking about ways to address the budget and the impacts of the harmful sequester.…”