Political Quotes

“I see my friend and colleague from the State of Rhode Island, who serves on the Defense Appropriations Committee as well as the Armed Services Committee, and I will yield to him next. I do want to say a word about the Department of Defense appropriation contained in this bill. This act provides $604.9 billion, including $87.2 billion for overseas contingency operations. That is a reduction from the 2012 level of $633.2 billion. There were no changes in the bill that passed the House last week. The bill fully complies with the spending caps in the Budget Control Act. It contains no Member- requested earmarks in compliance with the earmark moratorium. Congress has cut the defense budget to find programs which we believe are excessive to accommodate scheduling delays, budget errors, and unspent funds. The bill includes 671 cuts to programs in the budget request that have funds that are not needed for the remaining 6\1/2\ months of the year. I believe everyone should agree with the notion that if we are going to replicate last year's budget--for goodness' sake, we are not going to build the same ship twice, so we are trying to avoid those obvious misappropriations and waste of Federal tax dollars. The bill also rescinds $4 billion in unspent prior-year appropriations for 87 programs that have been delayed or terminated.…”