Political Quotes

“I thank my two very good friends, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) for yielding me time, and I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) for bringing forth this resolution, which I support because it is a resolution of disapproval. Now, you should know where I am coming from, Mr. Speaker. In my congressional district there are almost 23,000 people being displaced because of BRAC. It is the equivalent of four major military bases. But we could accept that, and Senator Warner, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, has said as well we can accept that decision, but for the fact that it is inconsistent with the BRAC authorizing legislation which was designed to save money and to improve military effectiveness. It does neither. Initially, its was supposed to save $48.8 billion over 20 years. The latest analysis tells us that it is actually going to save only $15.1 billion over 20 years, about $700 million per year, which, incidentally, is about as much as we spend in a day in Iraq now. So the question is, why we would be disrupting the lives of so many thousands of people if we are going to save so little money. And, in fact, even this savings estimate is suspect because as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) has explained, it is based upon personnel savings, and all we are doing is moving the personnel around the country. That does not save any money.…”