Political Quotes

“I strongly oppose this amendment. It really doesn't make any sense whatsoever. What the bill does is it says you can't touch these things since until 2021. Now, we don't like that in the first place because this is micromanaging, again, DOD's ability to make decisions about how best to make sure that we maintain our nuclear deterrence. This is a fine example of why DOD is going to be in so much trouble down the road. Any effort they make to save money is going to be blocked by parochial interest. The people who are from there will rise up and say: No, you can't do that, basically because it negatively impacts my constituents. The thing that is truly awful about this one is it doesn't negatively impact constituents. It says 2021 sunset. And it is not a hard stop date, regrettably. It is 2021 when it sunsets, and any Congress that wants to extend it between now and, I guess that is 7 years from now, can go ahead and extend it. DOD should not be forced into a position of saying if a silo exists it has to be maintained forever, which is basically what this amendment says. It says it is completely impossible that under any set of circumstances might it be in the best interest of the Department of Defense and the national security of this Nation to get rid of even one silo. That doesn't make any sense. The underlying bill more than protects the parochial interests of the sponsors here by making sure that DOD can't touch it until 2021. But that is not enough.…”