Political Quotes

“I just want to respond briefly when basically it is called unconscionable to oppose something. Aside from being unbelievably arrogant, it is wrong to say that there is no reason whatsoever to vote against this bill. I mentioned earlier that there were--I am sorry, if he can call me ``unconscionable,'' I suppose I can call him ``arrogant.'' I don't know; it seems fair. At any rate, there is another reason not to vote for this bill, and that is that it underfunds readiness once again. It says this matches the President's budget, and overall it does, but it has $2.4 billion less in money for readiness. Last year's bill had $1.5 billion less in readiness. Why? Because every effort that the Department of Defense makes to cut just about anything--the movements that they wanted to make to start a BRAC, the changes that they wanted to make to the National Guard to save money, the plan they had to lay up 11 cruisers, the efforts to get rid of the A-10--efforts to move anything around are blocked by this committee, and they take that money out of readiness to fund what really amounts to a personal priority. What does it mean to take money out of readiness? It means that our troops do not get the training that they need to be prepared to fight. It is just that simple. Readiness money is the money for the ammo. It is the money for the fuel. It is the money for the mechanic to fix equipment.…”