Political Quotes

“we are getting close to having votes on amendments and final passage tonight, the most significant vote of the year each year. For 52 consecutive years, we have passed the National Defense Authorization Act. In almost every year there has been a last-minute misunderstanding as to how these different provisions might affect something that has nothing to do with the defense of America. In this case, there was--and procedurally I have disagreed with it. I have said several times that a land package was included on the bill. I have felt that once we have gone through the process of what has been referred to as the big four, we have ironed out the differences. There are a lot of things that I don't like, but there are more things that I do like. I daresay to Chairman Levin, he is in the same situation. I have to say one more time that this chairman has been so incredibly fair to everyone. We have to keep in mind that we passed this bill. After working on it for 4 months, we passed it to the floor from the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 23. There are a lot of things on here that we had. Of course, it went over and the House then passed their bill. They passed their bill actually on May 22; we passed it out of committee on May 23. The problem is, they were able to pass theirs on the floor; we were not.…”