Political Quotes

“I will just take a couple of minutes to keep everybody awake. The history of this program is pretty interesting. In 1992, by mandate, the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program began within the Department of Defense with an earmark of $20 million for breast cancer. So, back in 1992, somebody came up with the idea that we should put some money regarding breast cancer research into the Department of Defense bill. Everybody I know of wants to defeat breast cancer and fund research at an appropriate level. Why did they do it in the Defense bill? Because the Defense bill was going to pass. It is the one thing around here that we all eventually get done because we have to defend the Nation. So that idea of a $20 million earmark for breast cancer--fast forward from 1992 to now--is $900-something million of research at the Department of Defense. It went from $20 million to $900 million. It has been about $1 billion a year for a very long time. The reason these programs are put in the Department of Defense--some of them are related to the Department of Defense and veterans; many of them are not, and the ones that can make it in this bill are going to get their funding apart from their traditional research funding--is that the Department of Defense will get funded. All we are saying is that, given the budget problems we have as a nation and the constraints on our military due to defense cuts and shrinking budgets, now is the time to reevaluate the way we do business.…”