Jim Inhofe: “I regret we are doing this today. I can only speak for myself and not others, but if you wanted to do away with 527s for…”

“I regret we are doing this today. I can only speak for myself and not others, but if you wanted to do away with 527s for everybody and not leave anybody out, I would do it and do it in a heartbeat. But not on this bill. Everybody knows the consequences of putting something such as this on this bill. I hope in this very brief period of time --I was hoping to have more time--to at least address how significant this thing really is and what we are talking about. Mr. President, I have said this since 1995. Our country is facing the greatest threat it has faced in its entire history. But it is not just me saying this. Now we have George Tenet, who is the Director of Central Intelligence and an appointee of President Clinton, agreeing, in my committee, that we as a Nation are in the most threatened position we have been in in the history of America. So we need to turn this thing around. This is the first year in 14 years we are able to start turning the corner and rebuilding a deteriorated system.”