Political Quotes

“Today I voted against H.R. 6523 as amended, the ke Skelton Defense Authorization Act for FY 2011, because we must redefine, refocus and reign in military spending. We have the largest defense budget in the world. We cannot continue to spend as much on defense as the next 16 countries combined. We cannot continue to spend billions to protect West Germany from the Soviet Union when both ceased to exist 2 decades ago. Such policies are not fair to our military or to the taxpayer. In May, I voted for an earlier version of the Defense Authorization bill because it moved closer to ending the egregious Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy that discriminates against brave, qualified Americans who want to serve their country and contained positive elements that could serve as a platform for further improvement. This bill no longer contains that repeal and further misses an opportunity to appropriately prioritize funding for our national defense. It leaves the door open for more spending on the unneeded alternative engine for the F-35 fighter, authorizes $10 billion in missile defense, a $1 billion, 11 percent, increase over last year, and it unnecessarily ties the hands of the President to deal with Guantanamo facilities.…”