Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I urge Members of this body to support cloture on taking up the debate on the veterans and military affairs appropriations bill for next fiscal year. Chairman Johnson and I have put together a completely bipartisan bill which was unanimously supported by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate Appropriations Committee. This bill basically marked its spending level to the level approved by the House of Representatives, that passed the subcommittee, the full committee, and out on the House floor. The bottom line for its budget authority discretionary spending is the bill comes in $1.2 billion below the President's spending request, $620 million below last year's enacted level, and is even $2.6 million below the House. There are no earmarks in this bill. A few details. The bill does provide $128 billion to support our over 22 million veterans. That is $182 million in budget authority discretionary below the administration's request. The bill provides $13.7 billion for military construction. That is about $1 billion below the administration's request or $279 million below the House bill. Our Senate bill cuts or eliminates 24 separate projects, and all of those cut decisions were made in coordination with Chairman Levin and Ranking Member McCain from the draft Senate Armed Services Committee bill so that appropriations and authorization are synched up.…”