Political Quotes

“I would like to address the Senate on an amendment I have to the pending legislation, which will be familiar to my colleagues because it is similar to a bipartisan bill Senator Menendez of New Jersey and I have introduced, a stand-alone bill. It is called the Taiwan Airpower Modernization Act of 2011. It does something very simple but very important: It requires the United States to respond to a request by the Government of Taiwan to purchase 66 F-16C/D models of fighter aircraft. Why is this important? It is important for all sorts of reasons, one of which Robert Kaplan recently pointed out in an op-ed in the September 23 edition of the Washington Post: By 2020, the United States will not be able to defend Taiwan from a Chinese air attack, a 2009 RAND study found, even with America's F-22s, two carrier strike groups in the region and continued access to the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. The United States will not be able to defend Taiwan. So it is very important that we sell Taiwan, at no taxpayer expense--it is cash money coming from the Taiwanese Government to the United States that happens to sustain thousands of jobs right here in America--that we sell them these F-16s so they can defend themselves. Dan Blumenthal, in an October 3, 2011, article published by the American Enterprise Institute, lists what he calls the top 10 unicorns of China policy.…”