Political Quotes

“I offer this amendment together with Mr. Polis. We've heard discussion repeatedly about the value of science. But if we back up a few moments, we also need to understand our values as Representatives of this Nation. There's been an interesting subset of debates here over the last several hours and, on the one hand, it's the issue of, we must maintain our nuclear weapon superiority, and the committee has taken up that value, that goal, and has put a lot of money into that area while moving money out of the science. Unfortunately, the committee couldn't take a larger view of the overall budget and the appropriations and deal with, perhaps, the fact that we're spending $82 billion in Afghanistan this year and maybe move some of that money over into these accounts. But that wasn't possible. But if you stand back and take a look at what has happened throughout the course of this day, you'll see that there have been repeated efforts on the part of the Democrats to rebuild the science, the research budget of the United States. This appropriation bill simply decimates that budget, that critical investment in today and tomorrow, and in the economy of the future. Our ability to deal with climate change, our ability to deal with energy, are just stripped, gutted and actually set aside as a result of this appropriation bill.…”