Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, last night, yesterday in Iraq 7 brave young Americans died. This is the committee that makes the decisions to arm those people, to pay those people, take care of their families, and to take care of their injuries when they get home. And, so, as earlier this year I voted to send those young people to Iraq, I share in the responsibility and for those things that go wrong I share in the blame. Having said that, although I have grave reservations about parts of this bill, I will be supporting it because they deserve to be paid, they deserve a pay increase, they deserve the better weapons, the better ships that are in this bill. But there are a couple of things that trouble me greatly. Number one is the Bush administration's insistence on another round of base closures. Anyone in this body knows, who has taken the time to look at it, knows the United States Army is too small, that the entire United States Army is spoken for. If they are not deployed, they are getting ready to be deployed. So how on earth can we close one base out of four as the Bush administration wants to do? The fleet is too small, 295 ships. Again, how can we close one Navy port out of four if the fleet is too small? If the Bush administration truly thinks the base closures is a good idea, then they ought to have the courage to announce which bases they want to close prior to the Presidential election and not after in 2005.”