Political Quotes

“I wish to share a few general comments about where we are. All of us have been confronting, whether we want to or not--I think some of us more realistically than others--the debt situation this Nation faces. We are, indeed, borrowing 40 cents of every $1 we spend. That is an unsustainable path. We have already had 3 consecutive years of deficits exceeding $1 trillion, and we are projected to have another trillion-dollar deficit next year. The debt under President Obama has now increased by 42 percent in the first 3 years of his term in office. It is an unsustainable course. We have to do better. The National Defense Authorization Act represents our committee's vision for defense in the future. We have done something about the spending problem America has. As we calculate the numbers, we are down from $548 billion--in actual money spent on the Defense Department last year--to $527 billion this year, an actual reduction, in noninflation- adjusted dollars, of over $20 billion, which represents about a 5- percent reduction, a 4-percent reduction in defense spending. That is what all of our accounts should be doing. But, indeed, that is not happening. In the other aspects of discretionary spending-- defense being the largest portion of discretionary spending in the Congress--the other agencies and departments are not showing a reduction at all.…”