Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I have deep respect for the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He said earlier this afternoon that President Roosevelt made a promise. I can tell my colleagues I had my staff go to the Roosevelt Library. We didn't just leave it up to the study done by the Senate. We can find no promise--no promise by President Roosevelt, no promise by General MacArthur, no promise by individuals who were intricately involved in the commitments at the end of the Second World War in the Pacific. In fact, we did take care of those Filipinos who served as scouts for the U.S. services, and they got full VA benefits. What we are talking about--and this is not the purpose of this discussion--is a continuation, an addition to the Filipino equity fund. Two years ago we passed legislation creating that fund. We appropriated $198 million, and we allowed 1 year from the enactment for any Filipino who wanted to claim to, in fact, put in an application. That deadline was February 16. At the end of December, my staff talked to the VA, and they had obligated under $100 million. The legislation at the time required the Secretary of the VA to submit in the President's budget this year a detailed report of the number of applications and, more importantly, a breakdown of how much money and to whom it went. That was not supplied in the President's submission to Congress.…”