Political Quotes

“I appreciate the opportunity to share some remarks, and I appreciate the eloquence of my friend and colleague from West Virginia on the issue he just mentioned. The committee did reduce almost by half the amount that contractors could bill, and we may see further changes in that issue. But when we are talking about money, real money, there is a problem we have with the bill that came out of committee. It is such a grim, serious matter that we have to talk about it, we have to be up front about it, and nobody can be confused about it. I was pleased with Chairman Levin. He is a wonderful chairman of our committee. We have consistently had bipartisan votes. I wanted it to be a bipartisan vote for the bill and voted for it today, but I am not sure that was the right vote because I said during the committee that we have a serious problem in the amount of money that was appropriated for the bill, $52 billion over the current law. There is a hope and belief that we can fix that gap between now and the time it comes to the floor. Secretary Hagel was before the Budget Committee yesterday. I am the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee. He indicated he is working on a plan to help us be within the law. He also indicated that to Chairman Levin and Ranking Member Inhofe on the Armed Services Committee. But let's be sure what the situation is. August 2011 we had run up huge debt. We had hit our debt ceiling again.…”