Political Quotes

“Given the ongoing budget negotiations, we need to explore all options for reducing wasteful spending, and I think we have an easy one in front of us in this amendment. Before we ask the American people to accept painful cuts or accept tax increases, we have an opportunity here to get defense spending under control in a way that does not jeopardize or harm our national security. If we're serious about deficit reduction, we need to do something about the defense budget, and we can do it in a responsible way that doesn't hurt our national security. My amendment would do that. By reducing some of the 80,000 troops in Europe where they're no longer needed, we can save hundreds of millions of dollars. So what my amendment would do very simply is reduce the total number of troops stationed in Europe from 80,000 to 30,000, which is more than enough to continue to support our ongoing operations in Libya and Iraq and our responsibilities to NATO for those Members who support them. For those who don't, this is not a proxy for those battles. We don't want to cut the troop levels so low we can't support those operations. It will allow the DOD to save money by closing those bases that are no longer needed. By pulling 50,000 troops out of Western Europe and closing bases, we can save money, reduce our redundant military force, and CBO has scored the savings of this amendment as over $800 million.…”