Political Quotes

“First of all, I want to acknowledge the good work of Chairman Thornberry and Ranking Member Smith in the Armed Services Committee. As my colleague from Alabama said, there is nothing more important than having a secure national defense to protect the American people. But this bill does have problems. Many of them are not created by the Armed Services Committee. They are created by us in Congress. It has been catastrophic for us to have the millstone of the Budget Control Act that is limiting the ability of Congress to make decisions about where to spend more or where to spend less, and two things are happening as a result of that. Number one, we abdicate our responsibility. In some places we should be spending more, but in many other places we should be spending less. The second thing, Mr. Speaker, is that we put in straitjackets our managers at the Pentagon and in other programs because we micromanage where they must spend money. If we are going to give them a challenge-- the budget cap right now is $549 billion; this bill suggests that we spend close to $700 billion--we have got to give them managerial flexibility and stability. The Budget Control Act is the ``Budget Paralysis Act.'' That is on all of us here in Congress. Now, a second thing, this bill, in that context, where we are going to blow through that cap but do nothing about our ability to make decisions on the taxes and spending, means that this gets cut totally out of domestic spending.…”