Political Quotes

“I first say and express my appreciation to Chairman Levin. We hear a lot of talk about bipartisanship and people getting along. That is usually just talk. In this case, it is real. We have a committee of Democrats and Republicans concerned about defending our Nation with totally inadequate resources. Chairman Levin has responded every time we have had some kind of a controversial matter come up. Then our staff--Peter Levine is the staff director for the majority and John Bonsell is the staff director for the minority--I have yet to call them when issues come up that we haven't been able to get this done, and this is kind of unusual. This doesn't happen in the Senate in very many committees. I believe, and have always said, the NDAA is the most important bill of the year, keeping in mind we have actually passed one for 52 consecutive years. This is something that has to be done. We adopted the National Defense Authorization Act on May 22, as the chairman said, 25 to 1, which doesn't happen very often around here. It contains a lot of vital work we have to do and it is within the budget caps. I think it supports the training of the troops, the maintenance and modernization, research and development, and the pay and benefits. These are tough issues to negotiate, but we have done that, and we have it ready for more action. What we don't want is what happened last year. Last year we had a lot of amendments.…”