Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. By way of brief summary, this amendment would freeze the base Department of Defense funding at 2011 levels. It is roughly a $17 billion reduction, or a 3 percent reduction over the bill that's currently before us. Again, it takes it back to the 2011 levels that we passed just recently in H.R. 1 during the continuing resolution debate. This is not, Mr. Chairman, a new idea. It's not even my idea. The Domenici-Rivlin bipartisan deficit reduction plan also proposed exactly this--freezing base defense spending at 2011 levels. {time} 1530 During the budget debate, the one substantive bipartisan amendment that passed was an amendment that was a sense of the Committee that said that defense spending needed to be on the table as we look at spending reductions for 2012. And most importantly, the President's fiscal commission, the Simpson-Bowles Commission, also recommended exactly what this amendment does today, keeping defense spending at 2011 levels. I happen to believe that at least, especially in this area, the Simpson-Bowles Commission is correct. And I want to read from the commission's report: ``Every aspect of the discretionary budget must be scrutinized. No agency can be off limits, and no program that spends too much or achieves too little can be spared.…”