Political Quotes

“I want to stress a couple of points of agreement between us. First, I very much have in mind trying to get France and Germany and England and Belgium and Denmark and Norway, quite wealthy countries, to contribute. I agree with the gentleman that we should not be trying to get more out of Hungary and Poland and the Czech Republic. Indeed, I think it is essential for these newer democracies, newer recently, not to put themselves at risk with their own people in terms of excessive demands here. So I am not trying to get more money out of the new members. I believe the problem is with the existing NATO members who have been doing so very well for so long. And that is the key point. The second thing I would say, in agreement with the gentleman from Nebraska, I hope that those figures we have seen are exaggerated. That is why what this says is we will take the administration's figures at its word. And we always have the constitutional right as Congress, if it turns out there is some unforeseen problems, the way this works is we come back here and nobody doubts they would get very rapid consideration. So I am not in dispute with the gentleman's views on the costs. Indeed, it is precisely those more moderate costs he described that are the fundamental premise of this amendment.”