On the recordNovember 7, 2003
I profoundly appreciate the hard work that has gone into this legislation but, my friends, we know that it is 1,200 pages long, it spends $400 billion of the taxpayers' money and no one in this body save the conference members have had more than 3 hours to read this. It is a fine thing to stand up and say we support our troops, and we all do. But the fact is we should not be voting on this today because we have not read it. We should vote next week on this, after we have had time to think about this seriously. If we truly care about our veterans, let us care enough to read the legislation, and if we truly care about our troops, let us care enough to read this legislation. I will vote ``present'' because I do not have enough information to vote yea or nay, and I regret that profoundly.
Source
govinfo.gov
