Political Quotes

“I have taken the floor a number of times over the last 8 years during the Clinton administration strongly criticizing the Clinton administration for what I consider to be a weakening of our national security. We had budgets that annually were short in terms of equipment being replaced, low pay for our military personnel, substandard housing for our military families, a lack of readiness, spare parts and training for our forces that might have to move around the world on a moment's notice, and overall shortchanging of national security by substantial amounts each year in the budget. I want to go through the facts that I have laid out over the last several years with respect to what was then the Clinton administration's defense budget. First I pointed out that we have cut our military forces since 1991-1992, the days of Desert Storm, by about 50 percent, and I pointed out that we had gone from 18 Army divisions to 10, we had gone from 24 fighter air wings to only 13 active air wings, we had gone from 546 Navy ships to 316, now down to less than that and going toward a 300 ship Navy.”