Political Quotes

“let me first say that the veterans of America have no better friend in America than the gentleman from Mississippi, Sonny Montgomery. General Montgomery, who has served in this body long and with great distinction, is my very close friend. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the objective of this bill, which is to ensure that the veterans of America continue to have the kind of health care that we have said that they would have and that we ought to deliver to them. That is the objective. Mr. Speaker, everybody in this body obviously has a program that they believe is particularly important, but let me say on February 10, 1994, the four proponents who have spoken on this bill voted to cut 252,000 people from the Federal work force and they said we were going to save money. I voted for that bill, the Vice President recommended it, but very frankly, folks, what we did was we took a number. We did not make an analogy between the programs that we wanted accomplished and the level of personnel that would be required to accomplish those objectives. No, we took a number. It sounded politically good, it gets us below 1.9 million civilian employees. And it was not targeted, so it was an easy vote. Reduce 252,000 people.”