DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010 -- (Senate - December 17, 2009)

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Mr. KERRY. Madam President, I rise to speak on something else, but I will say very quickly, I have listened to colleagues on the other side of the aisle lamenting where we are today. It has been 11 months since a new President was inaugurated and, obviously, everybody understands this is not a mess he created. The last 8 years of the stewardship of this country, where there was never one appropriations bill vetoed in that entire time, is an extraordinary story of public negligence and even malfeasance.

We are where we are. We are creating jobs. The economy is turning around. We had the least loss in the last 11 months. We are beginning to see those changes. We will ultimately have the strength in our economy to deal with this deficit.

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