On the recordMarch 17, 2011
No one can deny that the increasing costs of the war in Afghanistan are constraining our efforts to invest in job creation and jump-start the economy. Yesterday, I joined a bipartisan group of 80 Members of Congress in sending a letter to President Obama calling for a significant and sizeable reduction in United States troop levels in Afghanistan no later than July of this year. This debate that we're having today here should have occurred in 2001 when Congress authorized this blank check. It was barely debated. It was barely debated, and the rush to war has created not less anger towards the United States but more hostilities, and it's not in our national security nor economic interests to continue.
