Political Quotes

“Mr. President, let me respond to a couple of the remarks of my good friend from Illinois. I listen to this all the time, people talking about during the Bush administration, the costs that have gone up, the deficits and all this stuff. I appreciate the fact that the Senator from Illinois did state that the situation was a little different when President Bush came into office because, of course, 9/11 happened and we ended up in a couple wars. But that is understating the situation. Right after the Clinton administration--I remember it so well--I was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee at that time and actually was a member of the House Armed Services Committee when President Clinton first came in. The euphoric attitude everyone had at that time was that the war is over. Remember we talked about the peace dividend and all this stuff. The war is over and we no longer need to have a strong national defense. That is what they were saying, though they used different words. They started cutting our defense system. I have a chart that shows what happened to--the demise of our ability to defend ourselves during the Clinton administration. We went through the same thing back during the Carter administration. People remember the hollow force at that time. During the Clinton administration, we started degrading our military. It was reduced by 40 percent from what it was when he took office during those 8 years.…”