Political Quotes

“Now, I say to my colleagues, we are spending in fiscal year 1995 at below discretionary levels, fiscal year 1994. And what I was pointing out there in that debate in the Budget Committee is that we are spending less in discretionary spending in 1995 than we are in 1994 and spending less in nominal terms. I am not talking about spending less using a CBO baseline, I am saying in nominal dollars, uncorrected for inflation, there is less discretionary spending in this budget for fiscal year 1995 than there was for fiscal year 1994. I went ahead to say: When you add into that the effects of inflation, these discretionary accounts are being hit very, very hard--very hard indeed. If I were to allocate across the discretionary accounts where I thought percentage basis these cuts would be made by the Appropriations Committee--and I serve on the Appropriations Committee, I am chairman of the military construction appropriations subcommittee, I serve on the defense appropriations subcommittee--my view would be that defense would take 75 percent of these cuts, and the rest of them would be spread across the discretionary accounts. That is what I said, as chairman of the committee in the debate. So, clearly, no Senator who voted for the Grassley-Exon reduction could have any doubt that military spending would be placed in jeopardy here.”