Political Quotes

“a while back I was visiting the honors class at Hattiesburg High School. One of my students asked me that in my capacity as a member of the Committee on National Security, ``What are you? Are you the cheerleaders or the critics for America's military?'' And my answer to her was, we are both. The cheerleader in me wants to report that I think we did the very best we could with what we had. The critic in me wants to point out that I do not think this Congress as a whole is appropriating enough to our Nation's defense. I hear on a daily basis some of my colleagues come to the House floor and say, well, we are pretty close to balancing the budget, so let us give our wealthiest contributors a big tax break. Some of my other colleagues come to the House floor and say, well, we are almost balancing the budget, so let us pass a whole bunch of new social programs. They are both wrong. The highest priority of this Nation has to be to defend this Nation, the States can do almost everything else, and I am troubled that we are not doing it well enough. I am also troubled that of the 5 people who put together the defense budget, I am sorry, the overall budget for this Nation, the President of the United States, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the Chairman of the Committee on the Budget in the House, the Chairman of the Committee on the Budget in the Senate, not one of them has spent one second in the uniform of our country.”