Patricia Schroeder: “I must say as this body rushes this bill through to get out for the Presidents' Day recess, my guess is every prior…”

“I must say as this body rushes this bill through to get out for the Presidents' Day recess, my guess is every prior President will be horrified and ask us to cancel the recess, because this bill goes to the very core, the very core of what this Government is about and our very national security. I never, never recall a closed rule on any issue of national security or the gulf war or any of those issues. The most precious thing we have are our young people, and how we protect them, how we deploy them, and what we do with the world leadership that has been cast upon us is very critical, and to get out of here real fast and cut this off, I think, is really very tragic. This bill, when it first appeared in our committee, many of us started screaming, ``Author, author,'' because we could not believe it. We have not found out who the author is. We are beginning to think it was an intern project for the Heritage Foundation or something. They did change it in many ways, because in the two little micro-mini hearings we had, we pointed out all sorts of things that were wrong. And there are still many things wrong that make this bill rotten to the core.”