Political Quotes

“No. 1, when it comes to Senator Durbin, there is no stronger voice for medical research in the Senate and he should be proud of that. Senator Durbin and I are cochairing the NIH caucus, the National Institutes of Health, to make sure we take the crown jewel of our research at the Federal level and adequately fund it, to try to make it more robust, and in times of budget cuts, sequestration across the board, I want to compliment Senator Blunt and Senator Durbin and others for trying to find a way to increase NIH funding. I think we will be successful, and a lot of credit will go to Senator Durbin. As to the military budget, we are on course to have the smallest Army since 1940. We are on course to have the smallest Navy since 1915 and the smallest Air Force in modern times. Modernization programs are very much stuck in neutral. The wars continue, and they are expanding. By 2021, if we go back into a sequestration mode, we will be spending half of normally what we spend on defense in terms of GDP. So to those who want to reform the military, count me in. This will be one of the most reform-minded packages in the history of the Department of Defense. We are trying to address the top-heavy nature of the military, where general officer billets have exploded, and make sure we have a leaner military at the top and put our emphasis on those out in the field fighting the war. We are dealing with the explosion of contractors. We are looking at our medical delivery systems anew.…”