Political Quotes

“I would be happy to yield. Mr. McCAIN. As my friend from Oklahoma knows well--and, by the way, I wish every American could have a chance to read this list of waste, fraud, and incredible misuse of Americans' tax dollars. But one of the areas not in this document that the Senator from Oklahoma and I have talked about is the issue of cost overruns in our weapons systems. For example, the latest aircraft carrier which was just christened with great fanfare, the Gerald R. Ford, is now at a $2 billion cost overrun of what the original cost estimate was. That is for one ship. When I think about what the $2 billion cost overrun could do in my home State of Arizona, it is even more staggering. Yet somehow we let this cost overrun accumulate over a long period of time, and the ship still, by the way, was recently christened, which does not mean finished, commissioned. At a hearing we had in the Armed Services Committee the other day where the effects of sequestration--which I think are devastating--were described by each of the service chiefs, the Chief of Naval Operations, my old service, said: We need $500 million more for the Gerald R. Ford. I was stunned. I said to him: Admiral, there is a $2 billion cost overrun on that ship. I asked him if anyone had been fired. His answer, I tell my friend from Oklahoma, was he didn't know if anyone had been fired over the cost overrun of over $2 billion, with a request for $500 million more.…”