Political Quotes

“Madam President, we are wrapping up to a vote that we hope will occur on Senator Vitter's amendment at noon. I will summarize where we are. We are completing debate on a bill that provides funding for the Veterans' Administration and military construction needs. This bill backs up over 22 million veterans who have served our country. The reason I and the Republicans on the Appropriations Committee have unanimously supported this bill is, it is marked to the House budget resolution, the Paul Ryan budget resolution number. We cut funding by $1.2 billion in budget authority discretionary numbers below the President's level. This bill comes in $620 million below the 2011 enacted level, and it is even $2.6 million below the House-passed level just adopted earlier this year, Chairman Culberson's bill in the House of Representatives. The Senate voted by a vote of 71 to 26 for cloture to bring up this bill. This is the first of the working appropriations bills. I hope there are many others. The legislation is important. People may ask: How did we make the funding cuts to come in at the House level? The answer is, Chairman Johnson and I made some difficult decisions. We cut 24 separate military construction programs. A list is available in the report that accompanies this bill. We made some very tough calls regarding spending that was proposed for Bahrain, for Germany, and for Korea. There was a worthwhile project proposed for the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.…”