Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I think this is an ill-advised amendment for essentially five reasons. First, under this amendment, only troops stationed in Europe could be assigned to work on our borders. Why should we pay to fly troops to Europe only to fly them back again? This is wasteful. Second, this amendment erroneously assumes troops just sit around doing nothing, that they are some kind of free good. Peacetime troops, however, are in constant training. Assign them to another mission and their skills quickly erode. They are no longer qualified military forces. Enacting this amendment is the same thing as a troop cut. But on top of that, it would waste all the money spent to give these men and women military skills. Third, if INS, Customs, and the Border Patrol lack staff, the appropriate solution is to increase their staffs, not to raid the armed forces. This should be an amendment to another bill. Fourth, INS, Customs, and the Border Patrol all are staffed with people trained in the skills those agencies need. And those are not the skills we give our military. Tank gunnery will not be much help at JFK Airport. Except for menial chores, the military will not be of much help. And for menial chores, like inspecting boxes of cargo, these troops would be overpaid.”