Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. I want to thank Chairman McKeon, the committee members, and the staff who, once again, did an outstanding bipartisan job in putting together this bill. One of the paramount duties of our Congress is to provide for the common defense and, most importantly, make sure that our men and women who serve us in uniform have all the support they need to fulfill the missions that we ask them to do. I believe this bill meets that standard. I thank the chairman for his willingness to work in a bipartisan fashion with me and my staff. I believe we have upheld the tradition of this committee and have shown that Congress can, in fact, work together to get things done, and I always appreciate that opportunity. Most importantly, this bill prioritizes supporting the warfighter. We still have around 70,000 U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan fighting the war. We need to make sure they have the equipment and support they need to do that. I believe this bill meets that mission. This bill also recognizes the threats we face and adequately funds the need to meet those threats, most importantly, the threat from terrorist and nonstate actors like al Qaeda and their affiliates. We have strong support for the Special Operations Command as well as for intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance to make sure that we can continue to defeat the terrorist networks that would threaten us. Those are the top priorities.…”