Political Quotes

“I support this amendment. I disagree very strongly with the remarks of the gentleman from South Carolina. First of all, the past BRACs have saved us an enormous amount of money. There have been five rounds. The first four saved us pretty much exactly as much money as they said they were going to. The fifth one was more expensive, but the fifth one was done in 2005, at a time when we were building up the size of the military. It wasn't so much a closure as it was a realignment. But even then, it is now saving us money. So if you want to argue against BRAC, argue against BRAC; but please, let us not argue that it doesn't save us money because that is just factually ridiculous. It absolutely saves us money. Second, there have been a number of studies by the Air Force and others. The Air Force has estimated that they are 20 percent over the capacity of their installations. It would be great if we could have a comprehensive study. I agree with that. What our bill has done every year for the last several years is prohibit them from even thinking about a BRAC. So it is a brilliant argument to say, well, you can't do a BRAC because you haven't done a comprehensive study, and then to put in the bill you are prohibited from doing a comprehensive study. It is a nice little tautology, but it isn't helping our military. As we have been discussing throughout the night, we have more needs than we have money for.…”