Political Quotes

“I rise to oppose this defense authorization bill. A nation's greatness ought to be measured only in terms of the greatness of its people; not by the greatness of its ability to dominate and intimidate with military might. Excessive funding in the defense authorization budget at the expense of critical social needs gives rise to a perilous sense of artificial security and leads to a dereliction of duty to all our citizens' needs. Therefore, I oppose this bill because it reduces and/or eliminates funding for many critical Federal programs of importance to my constituents. We do not need a defense budget that authorizes $12.4 billion over what the administration has already requested. Why must we tailor our military force for threats that simply no longer exist. Wake up people. The cold war is over. More than half of the increase over the President's request is for additional weapons procurement. How can we justify a $6 billion increase when funds are being reduced for safe and drug-free schools, for programs for kids with disabilities; for nearly 50,000 American children from the Head Start Program are eliminated, and so forth. We can't. The justification is not there. We can't because this bill, is simply not people-friendly. Further, this bill is flawed by self-serving adventure-fantasies catering to but a few. It ignores with extreme insensitivity the sordid impact it has upon social concerns.”