On the recordMarch 9, 2011
I appreciate the help of the Senator from Alabama on the patent bill which passed last night. It will help us increase jobs without adding anything to the deficit. We made what I think was a terrible mistake when the Congress voted to support going to war in Iraq--I was one of the 22 who voted against that war--and then voted to cut taxes and borrow the money to pay for the war in Iraq. We borrowed $1 trillion to pay for a war that has not made us safer. It has caused thousands of deaths of Americans and tens of thousands of others, and has degraded our military which will cost billions to rebuild. We also went into Afghanistan with the intent to catch Osama bin Laden, and when, according to accounts, he was surrounded, our personnel were yanked out of Afghanistan and sent to Iraq, and he escaped into Pakistan, and $1 trillion later, we are still there. Again, borrowed money for those two wars, one that went way beyond whatever it was supposed to and the other one that should never have happened in the first place. We also cut taxes on oil companies and millionaires and everybody else. And now we have a skyrocketing deficit, thanks to those mistakes.
