Political Quotes

“Here we go again, another payment on a war that should not have been fought and an occupation that keeps our young men and women in harm's way. By forcing Congress to tie the fate of spending for critical domestic programs to Iraq funding, this President held these programs hostage just to prop up his failed policy. This is not only shameful, it is unacceptable. The American people want our troops and our contractors home. A recent CNN poll found that 69 percent of respondents favored withdrawing all of our troops from Iraq. Nearly half believe that our troops should be home in under 1 year. The only funds that we should be giving this President today should be to protect our troops and our contractors and to bring them home in a safe and timely and orderly fashion, in other words, what we tried to do several weeks ago, and, that is, fully fund the redeployment of our troops and military contractors from Iraq. And we should be using this opportunity to shore up vital programs such as our poverty elimination efforts, vital HIV/AIDS programs, both domestic and international, and providing health care for all, which we tried to do in the Appropriations Committee under Chairman Obey but which the President, unfortunately, threatened to veto. Now, Congress, this body, once again is complicit in the President's games. And these are war games that he is playing.”