Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from California. I rise very briefly to respond to a few points made by my colleague and friend from New Jersey. Yes, North Korea is a threat. Yes, Iran is a difficulty. Yes, China's role in the world is growing, and we will need to deal with that. No, Syria was not a problem last year, but Egypt was. All of these were challenges to us last year. All of these were challenges to us just 6 months ago when we set the base Defense appropriation at $518 billion, and $518 billion was good enough 6 months ago. It should be good enough today. I received a letter regarding this particular amendment, and it used a lot of the same language the gentleman from New Jersey did. It mentioned that these were real cuts already, that the cuts we have put in place regarding the defense budget were real cuts, not cuts in future growth. This is the CBO's estimate of the defense-based budget for the next 15 or 20 years. Can someone please show me in this dark line, which is the base budget, where the cuts are? Because in my world, when we cut spending, those graphs go down. The only reductions that we have seen, the only real reductions that we have seen in defense spending are in the overseas on the global war on terror, which we all agree was a good thing because it came as a result of winding up operations in Iraq and reducing operations in Afghanistan.…”