“Rather than spending hundreds of billions of dollars–the war in Iraq is at about $1.5 trillion. Rather than spending more money doing that–fighting George W. Bush’s war–how about we use that money to rebuild our Nation’s infrastructure–roads, bridges, dams, water systems, sewer systems. We have a deficit in infrastructure of trillions of dollars”, said Reid.
On June 18, 2014 Senator Reid asked for permission to address the United States Senate regarding the situation in Iraq. At one point during his speech he criticize the spending of billions of dollars on war, when we have serious problems here in our own country in terms of educating children and raising the minimum wage.
Here is some of what he had to say in this regard:
“Rather than spending hundreds of billions of dollars–the war in Iraq is at about $1.5 trillion. Rather than spending more money doing that–fighting George W. Bush’s war–how about we use that money to rebuild our Nation’s infrastructure–roads, bridges, dams, water systems, sewer systems. We have a deficit in infrastructure of trillions of dollars.
How about doing a better job of educating our children? Maybe we could raise the minimum wage or give the long-term unemployed unemployment compensation or maybe we could help men and women draw the same amount of money for doing the same work or maybe we could fully fund the Veterans’ Administration and ensure that our veterans–more than a million have come back from Iraq–are getting the care they need and deserve. Instead of addressing these issues at home, they are stuck in the same game. And it is not blame Obama; this is a new one–new yesterday or the day before. They are stuck listening to the very same neocons–obviously, that is where the Republicans are getting their information again–the same neocons who pushed us into the Iraq war in the first place, as they try to plunge our military in yet another foreign misadventure”, said Reid.
Source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov/ .