Political Quotes

“I rise in support of the NDAA that is on the floor now but also in strong support of an amendment that has been offered by Senator Reed of Rhode Island to the NDAA. Actually, I have a deja vu feeling in the speech, because the speech is largely about what I gave as my maiden speech in February of 2013; that is, the BCA budget caps and sequester. To begin, before I focus on the amendment from my colleague from Rhode Island, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, I do think there is a lot of good policy in the NDAA. We worked on it together. That committee process is a productive one. I think we always find a great degree of bipartisanship as we are trying to tackle the programmatic description of our Nation's military budget and support. There is much good policy, acquisition reform, and other key reforms that are part of this budget. There are some items that I feel very strongly about dealing with shipbuilding and ship repair. I think it is great that we are having the debate on the floor. We have had NDAAs passed, but we have not had a lot of floor time on them in 2013 and 2014. So the fact that we have are having this debate about the critical nature of our Nation's defense and the authorizing bill on the floor is very positive. There are some aspects of the NDAA that I do not like. There are some items that I wish were in there but that are not. That is part of the process.…”