Nancy Pelosi: “I do rise as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in support of the gentleman's amendment. I…”

“I do rise as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in support of the gentleman's amendment. I think it is a commonsense amendment that is well-thought-out and worthy of the support of our colleagues. As a member of the committee I with great reluctance voted against the Sanders amendment, which I think deserved this House's attention because it was a big cut, an across-the-board cut, not giving the discretion to the director or to the community to designate where that cut would come from. That was a 10-percent cut; this is a 0.7-percent cut, less than 1 percent. Certainly, while every other aspect of this budget is subjected to the harsh scrutiny of fiscal responsibility, certainly there is 0.7 percent in the intelligence budget that can be cut, and that will be done, according to this amendment, by the intelligence community, by the director reporting to the committee and, of course, with the approval of the President of the United States, the No. 1 consumer of intelligence in our country, and this figure, the 0.7 percent reduction in the budget, represents the President's request.”