Lynn Westmoreland Quotes

Over half a billion dollars a day is being spent by FEMA.

I have long believed there is a lot of waste in the defense budget.

Part of the redesign of FEMA is that they have so many people on standby, whether it is a retired nurse or a doctor who will take time off to go exactly where they are needed.

It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need, and our air force has to have a bake-sale to buy a bomber.

If a hurricane strikes, we can blame the president for not being there; we can blame Congress and FEMA; we can blame the state governments; but in the end, it's the mayors and the local city governments that have to be prepared for emergencies and be prepared to act.

I was able to promote a strong defense budget when it could have been cut a lot more severely.

One of the things government should be around for is to deal with catastrophes. It should do that well. To me, that's a government function, and we shouldn't be playing political games with it.

We pass bills authorizing improvements and grants. But when it comes time to pay for these programs, we'd rather put the country's money toward tax breaks for the wealthy than for police officers who are protecting our communities.

During the aftermath of Katrina, National Guard troops were positioned on every block to establish a sense of safety and source of help for the people in need. They did not leave communities until people were safe and sound.

I'm always being accused of being a Hollywood Republican, but I'm not! I have just as many Democratic ideas as Republican ones. If they could build three fewer bombs every month and give the money to foster care, that would be great.

If you have a sudden emergency, earthquake, hurricane, you name it, we want to be able to have a National Guard officer able to command federal forces.

Sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow citizens to accumulate treasure for wars to happen we know not when, and which might not, perhaps, happen but from the temptations offered by that treasure.

There is no question that FEMA and the National Emergency Response System did not fail America the day that Katrina hit. They failed the day before and the days before that.

The Republicans can't say no to military spending, and the Democrats can't say no to social spending.

Foreign policy debates are frequently segregated from domestic policy ones, so commentators who propose increasing the defense budget or sending more foreign aid are seldom asked to explain which domestic programs they’d cut or which taxes they’d raise, in order to find the money.

We ought to prioritize national disasters... in a fiscally responsible way.

You saw on your TV what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The Reserves or National Guard are usually the people we use for those national emergencies. They weren't here, they were over in Iraq, and so we were less protected.

Disaster management should be coordinated by the federal government, .. It is our exact responsibility.

We don't think about the first responders until we need them. Like I don't unconsciously think everyday about these people and their lives, but that is what they are doing.

I plan to work with all my colleagues on education and labor issues and to ensure the security of our nation by providing agencies from FEMA's disaster recovery efforts to the Coast Guard protecting our nation with the tools they need to be successful.

By incorporating disaster spending into the annual budget we can help Americans with disaster assistance without the process becoming a pathway for runaway spending on unrelated projects.

Whenever people in Washington complain about spending cuts, they mean spending cuts that would affect defense contractors. They want to massively increase spending cuts everywhere else in the budget.

In politics, throwing the taxpayers' money at disasters is supposed to show your compassion. But robbing Peter to pay Paul is not compassion. It is politics.

When you have the worst disaster in American history, you've got to be attuned to expectations,.

We got plenty of money in Washington. What we need is more priority.