Political Quotes

“I hope we will vote later on today to advance the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act. Members who have been around here a long time realize what a bipartisan tradition this has been for the Senate. Those listening to us should appreciate that and I think take note of basically a half-a-century tradition of passing this national defense bill on a bipartisan--overwhelmingly bipartisan--basis each year. We don't let a year pass. We have been able to successfully do that for approximately half a century. We will see later on today whether that tradition will continue, and I believe it will. I think we will be able to work something out with the House of Representatives. There are some differences that have emerged over there that we did not have in the Armed Services Committee when we reported overwhelmingly just a few weeks ago. I am very hopeful that we will continue this tradition. I hope we will do so particularly this year to build on the great progress we have made the last couple of years. I think we should admit on both sides of the aisle that we had perhaps let our national security slip a little in terms of a priority over the last several years. We rectified that a couple of years ago.…”