Political Quotes

“in 1992, when this administration took office, they commissioned a study of the military and our defense needs from the bottom up. The Bottom-Up Review sought to identify specifically the objectives that the administration wanted to protect this country against in order that we might have an adequate defense strategy. Now, 2 years later. Independent studies are showing that that strategy has been unfunded to the tune of anywhere between $65 and $150 billion over the prospective budgets. At the same time, we were just presented with a defense budget which, for the 11th consecutive year, presented real cuts in defense spending, or $10.6 billion below the current year's fiscal authorization. That is a real cut in defense spending of almost 40 percent over the last 10 years, at the very same time that vital installations and programs are being threatened because of drastic underfunding. This administration has committed at the end of the last year over 70,000 U.S. personnel in places like Iraq, Kuwait, Bosnia, Macedonia, the Adriatic Sea, Rwanda, Haiti, Cuba; and if the press is to be believed, shortly we will have Americans back on a temporary mission in Somalia. Mr. President, you cannot have it both ways. If there is a deep concern about defense, let us see that it is adequately funded, and if it is not going to be adequately funded, then let us not send American forces hither and yon all over the world.”