John Ensign: “Mr. Chairman, while I respect the words that have been said by my colleagues and respect the work that has gone into…”

“Mr. Chairman, while I respect the words that have been said by my colleagues and respect the work that has gone into making this bill, I still think that this is a question of priorities, and the priorities that I have remain with the veterans in this country. When we are looking at limited funds, we do have to say, ``What is important? How much should we spend on veterans? How much should we spend on science?'' Science is a theoretical number. Should we spend $100 billion on those science programs? Should we spend $200 billion? We have no idea what that number should be. It is some number floating out there. We do know, Mr. Chairman, that veterans have those needs and we do know that we are not meeting those needs currently. To not increase this number up to what the President has requested, I think, would be doing a disservice to the veterans who have paid such a dear price in serving our country. That is why I have offered this amendment, because of the sacrifice that those veterans have made. It is a question of priorities.”