Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today in support of an amendment that I have filed, along with Vice Chairman Chambliss, to the appropriations bill now on the floor, which will address a unique problem the intelligence community faces in applying the sequester reductions to the National Intelligence Program, NIP, budget. In short, this amendment would ensure that the intelligence community--which has to be as predictive and agile as possible--will have the same level of flexibility in implementing budget cuts as the Department of Defense, where most of its budget is located. Without this relief, the intelligence community will be far less discriminating in how it adjusts personnel and financial resources to address the dynamic and unforeseen threats our Nation will face in the upcoming months. This is a commonsense amendment. It does not cost a dime, and it will likely avoid a great deal of harm to our intelligence capabilities. Let me briefly describe the background and how the amendment would work. As has been described many times, the terms of the sequestration require that the same level of budget cuts apply across the board. That is, departments and agencies have to apply the same percentage cut across each account. It therefore becomes very important how those accounts are defined. If the account is very large, a manager has more leeway to prioritize funding and cut the least important, or the least urgent, needs.…”