Political Quotes

“I would just like to say I cannot believe the discussion here. I would like for our colleagues to tell the 1 million men and women in this country who lost their jobs in the defense industry over the past 2 years that there are no cuts being made. I would like my colleagues to tell them what they have said on the floor today, that we have not been tough with defense spending. And where do we get this dollar amount from? We are giving the President all this new money. I was President Clinton's bottom-up review who laid out the scenario for how much money we are going to need over the next 5 years. We have heard the chairman of the full committee mention the General Accounting Office. It was the General Accounting Office who said that we are $150 billion short just to meet the President's bottom-up review, and the Congressional Budget Office said we are at least $60 billion short, and we are only increasing it by a very small amount. In fact, all we are doing is stabilizing defense spending. I would urge our colleagues to reject this amendment and to support this very tough defense budget that I think has been crafted very wisely by the Committee on Appropriations.”