Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I ask all of my colleagues to support the FY 2000 defense authorization bill. As the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Military Procurement, I think we have produced a balanced bill that begins to reverse the downward spiral of procurement budgets over the last few years. One of the strong points of the procurement section is that we have authorized multiyear procurements for a number of key programs. They include the Navy's F18-E and F, the Javelin missile, Bradley fighting vehicles, the Army Apache Longbow helicopter and Abrams tank upgrades. Multiyear procurement is a good way to stabilize production while reducing costs for the taxpayer. I congratulate the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) on deciding to do it. It makes good sense. I also want to thank him for his leadership in other areas. One in particular is laying out the plan to use alternate technology in the orderly and systematic and safe destruction of chemical weapons. We have also tried to lay out a plan for the systematic review and oversight of the F-22 program. We all worry about the projected costs of this program, and this bill requires the United States Air Force to inform Congress early about any potential problems. We do this without prejudice, and the one thing we have learned in Yugoslavia is that we need to keep the technical edge.”