Political Quotes

“I rise to speak on the issue of the military COLA. This is a cost-of-living adjustment for our military retirees. In the budget agreement, the COLA was reduced for military retirees by 1 percent until they reached age 62, and then the COLA is restored. I am opposed to this provision in the budget, and I have since cosponsored legislation to fix it, meaning fully reinstating the COLA for our military retired. The bill we are considering and voting on later today fixes the COLA problem. It reinstates the COLA in full, and that is good. That is what I want to do, and that is what I believe the vast majority of Members in this body on both sides of the aisle want to do. We should pass the bill, and I believe this afternoon we will. The bill we have been considering this week fixed the COLA problem and restored the cost-of-living adjustment for our military retirees, but it did not cover the cost of doing so. The cost of the legislation is about $6.8 billion over a 10-year period, which, of course, is the Congressional Budget Office's scoring period. We can cover that cost, and we should. We have the deficit and the debt. We have to address our deficit and debt. We have to make sure we are paying for things, and we can absolutely do that in this case. In fact, we put forward amendments to do just that. The first amendment I joined in putting forward was one led by Senator Kelly Ayotte, the Senator from New Hampshire.…”