Political Quotes

“Let me give a response to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) with respect to the dollars that are in this supplemental under the defense heading. They are there simply because your Marines, your Air Force, your Army, your Navy needs them. Every time the Commandant of the Marine Corps addresses Congress in any forum, he always says, ``This is your Marine Corps.'' And in a very true sense, it is your Marine Corps and all the rest of the services. As my friend the gentleman from South Carolina knows, and I know that is the reason the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) is going to join with me and a number of other people in supporting the Lewis-Spence amendment to bring in about 4 billion extra dollars in spare parts, in safety fixes, in emergency fixes on the military health care system and a number of other areas where there truly is an emergency. That is why Democrats and Republicans have very carefully asked the services when they came before us, did the $305 billion defense budget submitted by the administration, does that take care of what your troops need, and they told us no. We said, be specific. And they outlined $15 billion worth of unfunded requirements; things we had to do. Let me tell my colleagues why they outlined them to us. They outlined them to us because our planes in many cases are not able to get off the ground and go do the mission. The mission capability is dropping like a rock.”