Patricia Schroeder: “I have always believed that government is not a fungus, that it can thrive in sunshine, and I understand that during the…”

“I have always believed that government is not a fungus, that it can thrive in sunshine, and I understand that during the whole period of the Cold War we wanted to keep this number secret. But I think now we ought to be able to get this number out, and I salute the President of the United States for saying we ought to put the number out, and I hope that this body finally does that. Coming here to debate this issue, I always feel very silly because we cannot talk about the numbers, we cannot talk about the issues, we cannot talk about anything. So what can we talk about? It all sounds like a bag of smoke at some point. But I think one of the things that the average person wonders is why are we not much more rigorous in our oversight? And I must say the only reason I think we do not reveal the number is we do not want to admit how poorly we have done some of the oversight. Now, this is not a great secret. I brought it from the newspapers so nobody wants to turn me in to jail.”