Peter Deutsch: “one of the things that all of us know is one and one equals two, and I think a very good question for all of us to ask…”

“one of the things that all of us know is one and one equals two, and I think a very good question for all of us to ask is why are the two parts of this supplemental one part? Why are the military and the reconstruction parts of this bill together? Let me give the Members the answer, which is not very complicated: one and one plus two, is that if they were separate, the supplemental part dealing with reconstruction would fail. Every Member knows that. Why would it fail? Because my Republican colleagues would vote against it and it would fail. So they have leveraged to put the two things together and said if we vote against the bill, we are against the troops. That is not why this bill is in one bill. The reason it is in one bill is because if the two things were separate, the reconstruction effort would fail. Let me tell the Members why it would fail. Because it is crazy. Because it is crazy. Because it is indefensible from policy grounds to have American taxpayers, literally American taxpayers, pay for the reconstruction of a country, 27 million people, that has trillions, trillions of dollars in oil reserves, the second largest oil reserves in the world.…”