Political Quotes

“I come to the floor this afternoon as the chairman of the Intelligence Committee in order to speak about the effect the government shutdown starting to have on the community and what effect it will have if the shutdown continues. Let me give the most important figure up front. Across the intelligence communities, 72 percent of the civilian workforce is being furloughed. This means that with the exception of a few intelligence agencies that have a significant number of military personnel, the lights are being turned off and the majority of the people who produce our intelligence, analyze that intelligence, and provide warning of terrorist attacks or advise policymakers of major national security events will be prevented from doing their jobs. Simply stated, this is unacceptable. The failure of this Congress to perform its most basic functions means that our country is at heightened risk of terrorist attack. Intelligence provides this Nation with its first line of defense because long before a threat makes it to our shores, the men and women in our intelligence community learn about it, sound the warnings, and often take the steps to neutralize that threat. Before the President or the Secretary of State makes decisions on U.N. Security Council resolutions, such as a resolution to end Syria's chemical weapons program, they review the intelligence and they seek the advice of intelligence analysts.…”