Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I want to encourage my fellow Members to support this measure. As many other people have pointed out, it does not do everything that we would like to do. But in a budget environment where, unfortunately, the only committee in Congress that has had its budget reduced in real dollars is the Department of Defense, I do believe that we have done as much good as we could with what we have. There are certain disappointments that I would like to articulate, things that I hope that we can address during this session. I will start by talking about health care for military retirees. Since most of those people have spent at least 20 years serving their country in the military, I think they, better than most, understand the chain of command, who is responsible for what. Unfortunately, this was not a decision that could be made alone by the Committee on Armed Services. Unfortunately, the funding for the program that they have told me they had the most interest in, which is Medicare subvention, flows through the Committee on Ways and Means, because the funding for that will have to come out of the Medicare budget. I am sorry that as of today that committee has chosen not to act upon this.”