Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I certainly regret to hear the words from my friend, the ranking member's mouth on this bill, because in scattershotting 9 or 10 cherry-picked arguments, he ignores the big picture. He ignores, again, the big picture that the NOAA Corps are doing serious work for our country, are commissioned officers, one of our seven commissioned officer corps, and are not recognized the same as the other six, to include the Public Health Service, which is a commissioned officer corps and is entitled to the same benefits as the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard. I think, in all honesty--and I don't think he means to do this--he does a great disservice to the people who are serving in the NOAA Corps by some of his statements, because these people are trying to do their best for our country. I am not sure that the Member has ever spent time on a NOAA ship in the high seas as I have, but if you do that, you know that there is nothing really to distinguish them from any of their fellow officers in any of the other services. It would take a lot of time to go through each of my colleague's 9 or 10 cherry-picked arguments. I want to make a couple of quick comments and then some big picture observations. First of all, if I am not mistaken, the GAO report that he refers to is dated 1996, a whole generation ago. That report itself was disputed by subsequent studies and, I submit, is really no longer relevant.…”