Political Quotes

“First of all, I want to get the numbers clear here. The budget proposed by President Biden was $753 billion, and by supporting this amendment, we support President Biden's budget of $753 billion, which was a $12 billion increase over last year's budget. Last year's budget--the last budget from the Trump administration-- only increased the defense budget that year by $3 billion. So a $3 billion increase last year was perfectly acceptable to my Republican colleagues in the House and Senate under President Trump. A $12 billion increase this year is not. So the numbers are just being dramatically presented here as some kind of cut when it is actually a bigger increase than Trump did in his last year in the White House. Let me make it clear: I see the threats, and I do agree more with my Republican colleagues on that point. I don't support the previous amendment that does the $75 billion cut because I understand the threat environment and I know that we need to modernize to meet that threat environment. But the other thing I see is decades of waste and wasteful expenditures on programs like the F-35 and the Ford-class carrier. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.”