Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentleman's amendment. I agree with everything he has said relative to the value of the program. But I would point out to my colleagues that, in our bill, we include $145 million for directed energy and railgun weapon efforts; and this is an increase of $25 million over last year's level, 2018, of $120 million. I would congratulate the gentleman that this time last year he had an amendment on the floor that was successful in adding $24 million to that program, bringing it up to $120 million. However, we are 8 months into the fiscal year and, to date, the Department has only spent about 20 percent of that money, that is, $24 million. I would also, again, point out, in the underlying bill, we have increased that $120 million to $145 million, so we do, as a committee, understand the potential of the program. However, I think it is not good policy to continue to increase funding for the program without allowing the services time to adequately research and learn from their past investments. Why should we continue to add more funding before the prior year's funding can even be spent or reasonably assessed as far as progress being made? Therefore, with all due respect to the gentleman, I must oppose his amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.”