Political Quotes

“along with my colleagues, I would like to wish my very heartfelt thanks and farewell to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump). He will be sadly missed. He served this Nation very well since the early 1940s as a young seaman in the Navy and he has been a great Congressman. If the gentleman is watching, we are sure going to miss you. You are a great guy. Mr. Speaker, the procurement portion of this bill does a lot, but as all of us always feel at the end of the year, we have never done quite enough. The fleet is still the smallest it has been since 1933. But I am pleased to announce that the bill would fund the building of two Aegis class destroyers, one Virginia class submarine, one LPD-17, four service life extensions for LCACs, two submarine conversions, one submarine refueling, two small-waterplane twin-hull mine hunters, one T-AKE, which I hope the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) will help me put some American propellers on; and $54 million to the title XI shipbuilding program for our domestic shipbuilders. Aircraftwise, we are going to build 23 F-22s, 48 F/A-18s, 12 C-17s, a multiyear procurement for C-130Js, 35 JPATS trainers, one JSTARS, 35 UH-60 Blackhawk variants and a variant for 15 Navy versions of that helicopter; six training helicopters and 11 V-22s. As far as ground forces, there will be 35 MLRS systems, 45 upgrades to the Bradley armored personnel carriers, 332 Stryker interim armored vehicles, and upgrades to 31 M1A2s.”