Political Quotes

“I enjoyed very much the remarks of the Senator from Florida. He is very much concerned about this, very much plugged into the situation of what is happening in Ukraine, but I would like to make a couple of comments about that from a slightly different perspective, one that is from my current position as the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I would like to look at just one part of this proposal; that is, the money that would be coming out of the military to take care of a problem the military should not have to take care of at a time when things are very serious. The IMF has all the authority it needs to meet all of Ukraine's borrowing needs--that is the $35 billion--with its existing commitments from the global community. The IMF does not need additional U.S. funds to help Ukraine. It does not make sense to double the size of the IMF by ratifying a 2010 agreement, paying for it with money that could be used by DOD to address the shortfalls which I am going to talk about. By the way, there is another option out there because the House has a bill. Chairman Royce of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is marking up a bill today as we are speaking that I believe addresses our response to Ukraine in a more responsible way. The House bill is likely to provide $68 billion in Ukraine aid that does not expand the IMF and removes it from the bans on LNG. This does not contain IMF reform. It does not take money from the DOD. I think that is good.…”