Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlewoman for offering this amendment. I think it is incredibly important. Mr. Garamendi outlined it quite well. There was a process to go through at DOD to determine what the budget should be. Once that process is done, we should respect that process, not allow everybody in the institution to say, ``Well, I would like to have more money.'' I can assure you that there would be unfunded requirements in every single aspect of government. You have to make choices. That is what DOD does. That is what the budgeting process does. What the unfunded requirements list does is it simply perpetuates the notion that you can never spend enough money. I submit that that attitude toward the defense budget--that whatever it is, it has to be higher--has a lot to do with all the inefficiencies, the lack of an audit, the number of programs that have gone overbudget and have underperformed, the number of programs that have never worked out the way we envisioned them. If there was fiscal discipline in place, we would get a better result. Allowing people to always ask for more, no matter what, undermines fiscal discipline. I also submit it undermines the effectiveness of the Department of Defense. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this amendment.”