Political Quotes

“In 15 seconds, I will simply say that this amendment is the least we can do. We should go with the Budget Control Act. The other side of the aisle says we haven't passed a budget. This is the effective budget. The fact of the matter is that we have doubled military spending, exclusive of Afghanistan and Iraq, in 10 years. We ought to start reducing it now. Mr. McKEON. How much time do I have remaining, Mr. Chairman? The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman has 1 minute and 15 seconds. Mr. McKEON. I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Chairman, I wish we were wrong, and I would hope that they are right in that we could continue to cut defense--cut it to the bone, cut it to the marrow--and that we could just live one big, happy, paradisiacal life, but history shows that that isn't the way things work. As Reagan said, it is important to have peace through strength. You will remember before he was elected, when President Carter tried to deal with the hostage situation in Iran, that our helicopters couldn't even fly across the desert. We'd cut back the military so far that we had a hollow military. There is a lot of talk about General Eisenhower and about President Eisenhower, and the thing he said, ``Beware of the military-industrial complex.'' He also said we have to have a very strong military because, if we don't, someone will take advantage of us. We have to be so strong that they're afraid to attack us for fear of annihilation.…”