Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I have four consecutive amendments that are all very closely intertwined. There are actually four simply for procedural matters that I offered originally as one. I am going to argue all of them together essentially at one time because this is what they do: they get rid of the OCO budget. That is it. They get rid of the OCO budget. Title IV of this bill is the OCO budget, and my amendments seek to simply be done with this thing. Mr. Chair, it has turned into a slush fund. That is not me saying that, by the way. That is folks from both Republican and Democrat administrations, together, saying that is what this is. It may have started with the best of intentions. It may have started out of absolute necessity. It may have been a good thing when it started, but we all know what it is now, which is a place to hide money and a way to get around spending caps. That is it. Mr. Chair, I hope I get a chance over the course of the next couple of appropriations bills to talk more about the OCO and more about specific examples of how it is abused. We actually now admit that we abuse it. We admit that there is money in the OCO budget that has nothing to do with overseas contingency operations. We admit that there is money in the OCO budget right now that has nothing to do with waging war overseas. We admit that we abuse this particular account. Why? Because we can and because it is very difficult to vote against the troops. That is not the right way to appropriate money.…”