Political Quotes

“let me respond briefly to my friend from Missouri with respect to depriving us of what he calls victory in this war. The war that I am concerned about, Mr. Chairman, is the next war, and I am concerned about the stocks of ammunition that are now very low. I am also concerned about those young men and women who have served us so well in the air war that has taken place over the last 78 days or so. The best way we can serve those men and women in uniform is to see to it that we get a large number of them off food stamps. I am talking about the 10,000 military families that currently are on food stamps. Another way we can serve them is to see to it that we have the spare parts to get our mission capability rates up above 70 percent and to get that crash rate which last year was 55 aircraft crashing resulting in 55 deaths during peacetime operations down to a lower level, if not an acceptable level. All of that is going to take money. Mr. Chairman, this war will be a disaster if we pay for it out of the moneys that would have gone to increase our munitions back to the two-war requirement, that would have gone to raise the pay of our military people up to the level where they can make more than the food stamp rate, if the money is taken out of the spare parts coffers where it has been taken in the past to leave 40 percent of our aircraft grounded because they are not mission capable.”