Political Quotes

“This is a very simple amendment. When we look at our country's national security, it is important to make sure that we don't mortgage our national security because fiscal security is an important part of protecting our country. My amendment would give authority to the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense to reduce the overall amount of money authorized by this bill by 1 percent. It simply cuts defense spending by 1 percent. As you know, we spend as much as the rest of the world, combined, on defense. We want to have a strong defense, but of course, as you know, this current authorization exceeds the levels of the Budget Control Act, even with this 1 percent reduction, which is really a compromise. It only reduces it by $5.5 billion and, in fact, continues to authorize at a level of $10 billion more than the bipartisan Budget Control Act. In a bill in which we overfunded multiple accounts and weapons systems above the request level of the military, I think 1 percent is a very reasonable request. It is about $5.5 billion. It is certainly possible to find these cuts. In fact, they are very likely to occur because, again, if we conform to the Budget Control Act, there would actually be a larger cut than even this humble one that we are offering before you today. As an example, the bill authorizes $9.5 billion in nuclear weapons activities alone. We could pass my amendment.…”