Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment with my friend from Colorado (Mr. Polis). Our amendment is very straightforward. It simply cuts the $23.7 million from the B61 nuclear bomb not requested by the Department of Energy. The National Nuclear Security Administration requested a 45 percent increase for a gold-plated upgrade plan for the B61 nuclear bomb. The committee provided the 45 percent increase in funding for a portion of the most expensive $10 billion upgrade plan. Then they provided an additional $23.7 million. Our amendment simply cuts these additional funds provided beyond what the agency requested. Let me back up for a minute and explain what the $560 million in this bill is actually going to pay for. At a time when we are slashing funds for research at the NIH, failing to fund our crumbling infrastructure, and underinvesting in our children's education, we are increasing funding to keep hundreds of nuclear bombs in operation that we will never use. The Cold War is over. Mr. Chairman, I thought today that I was back in a ``Twilight Zone'' episode--well, they're all like this--where you woke up in the morning and it is 50 years earlier--it's 1963. The Cold War is still raging. Despite the fact that security experts of all political stripes, including conservatives Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, have called for deep cuts to our outsized nuclear stockpile.…”