Political Quotes

“This is actually not a burden-sharing amendment. This is just designed to get our friends across the ocean to live up to their commitment. Just to give my colleagues a sense of where we are, the United States has a GDP, an economy, the size of about $8.9 trillion. The Europeans compare favorably of $8.3 trillion. Yet we spend $283 billion on defense; they only spend $180 billion. I wonder why we have to have our people over there for 40 years, because they have not been carrying the load. This is not even an issue about them carrying the load in a more aggressive way. What this is designed to say is that the United States has committed $20 billion to Bosnia, to Kosovo over the last few years. When we went into Kosovo, regardless of how one may feel about the action, let us put that aside for a second, and let us talk about the pledge that the Europeans made. They told us that they would help in rebuilding the country. They told us they would help in a variety of ways. What this amendment is designed to do is to carry forward the idea of Senator Warner who said that we need to get them to honor their commitment. This is not designed to increase their commitment. This is really not designed to increase burden sharing. This amendment is only designed to say to the Europeans they made a pledge to us; keep it. The Europeans pledged 3,883 policemen in Kosovo.”