Political Quotes

“I am here to speak about the topic of healthcare, but while my friend from Alaska is on the floor, I hope we can bridge the policy disagreements we have right now over the Defense appropriations bill, the appropriations process and the authorization bill. I have been in Congress long enough to have heard this argument be trotted out over and over again that if you vote against a defense bill, then you aren't supporting the troops, even if you have a legitimate policy disagreement you are trying to work out. I have heard that enough to know that it just doesn't match up with reality. I was told that because I opposed the Iraq war, I didn't support the troops. People in the 1970s were told that if they didn't support the Vietnam war, they were opposing the troops. The fact is, we have a legitimate policy disagreement that we are trying to figure out. Democrats don't think we should be taking money from defense construction projects that are housing and protecting our troops to be used to build a border wall with Mexico that doesn't do anything, in our opinion, to protect the United States compared to the benefit of the spending on military construction projects. We think that, ultimately, we are serving our troops by making sure those military construction projects get funded instead of this wall that doesn't make sense if not for the President's campaign speeches. So we have some policy disagreements over the budget.…”