Political Quotes

“it is with some trepidation that I oppose the amendment of the Senator from West Virginia because I have enjoyed working with him on this committee and in the Senate for a long time. There may very well be provisions in this amendment he offers that should be seriously considered for inclusion in the fiscal year 2004 appropriations bill. Right now, we are having hearings in the various subcommittees of Appropriations looking at the budget requests for 2004. Every committee is involved in that process, every subcommittee is involved in that process. But this is an appropriations bill that is targeted to the needs that are arising from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Liberty Shield, the functions of the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. It is a very narrow and limited area that we are concentrating our attention on right now. Some of these programs are hard to estimate in terms of what is really needed for the remainder of this fiscal year in addition to the funds that have already been appropriated in the regular appropriations bills for the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. But the President submitted this request, asked for the funds to finish out this fiscal year. We know we can add funds and probably use them later on, but this is not the last bill we will consider during this calendar year, that funds these Departments and these activities.”