Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise today with deep, deep reservations about the provisions in this bill funding the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a program that has been in place since 2016. Today, the United States has given $113 billion in security and humanitarian aid to Ukraine for their war against Russia. I acknowledge the fact that is an illegal war and Vladimir Putin should be punished. However, I am not happy with the level of visibility that we have given to this funding. The United States Government must be in charge of our foreign policy. The United States Government must be in charge of our defense policies, and we should not be handing these over to the Ukrainian Government. We are funding Ukrainians, we are paying their salaries for their troops and giving them stipends when we are potentially looking forward to shutting down our government due to Democratic intransigence, which means we will not be funding our own troops. This is simply unacceptable. Before any new money is dispensed to Ukraine, we need a strategic exit plan from the Biden administration with quantifiable metrics. Still, I will not allow D.C.'s dysfunction to undermine our national security and hurt our military families and will support the underlying bill, again, with great reservations. We must fund our military and we must pay our troops. Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr.…”