Political Quotes

“If I may, we have voted in this Congress on $160 billion of investment in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rebuilding of those countries, healthcare, housing, jobs, roads, bridges. As the gentleman wanted to remind me of a point in that debate less than a year ago, at that point, Secretary Powell said the $168 billion is a down payment, that they would need an additional $50 billion, which they will probably seek, just for that exceeding the $200 billion in Iraq, which we will never see, or, when I say ``we,'' the U.S. taxpayers will never, ever see. That is $200 billion. One can argue whether we are better off or not in Iraq, with Saddam Hussein having been deposed from Iraq, but the taxpayers will never see that investment back. Those are all dollars we are being told on a series of fronts, when we do not have the resources here at home. My purpose here, before we mark up this budget, and spend the next 3 or 2 months discussing the budget is to draw the parallel between what we are investing in Iraq. On housing, we have 7,000 units of housing planned for Iraq, yet only 5,000 for the United States. We have a water irrigation system, well over $800 million for a new irrigation system in Iraq, for water treatment; in America, in the President's budget, a $500 million cut in water and sewer treatment facilities here in the United States. That goes on and on.”