Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator from Arizona. I have heard there might be an effort to commit our bill back to the committee in order to reduce spending to a lower level. If we do that, someone needs to say which division needs to lose troops, which country do we not want to defend, which airplane do we not want to fly, and which pilot do we not want to train. We are talking about real decisions, and we are talking about not setting priorities. I don't think most of the American people know that when we talk about the Federal debt, it is not national defense that is driving up the Federal debt. It is in the blue line. It is our unwillingness on both sides of the aisle to confront this. One statistic that I was reminded of by my colleague the Senator from Tennessee is an American family today--think of an average age couple, 50 years of age, would pay about $140,000 into Medicare. They will get back about $430,000 in Medicare. We can understand how people who pay into Medicare would want to get their Medicare back, but we can also understand how that is not a sustainable program, and I think all of us as Americans can see that. One of the things I hope we do over the next several weeks is talk honestly about that problem. We are not solving that problem in this debate. We are talking about this $1 trillion. What are we going to do about the other $3 trillion that adds to our $19 trillion debt? Thank you. I yield the floor. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.…”