Political Quotes

“It seems lately that I come to the floor when the Republican leader is making especially reasonable, sensible proposals. I heard him say the same thing last week, and I agree with him. I saw a number of my Democratic friends this weekend in different places, and I said: Look, the President has been elected. He deserves credit for that, and he now has a chance to define his legacy. He told us what that is in his inaugural address. Isn't this the right time to get out of the way this difficult problem of dealing with entitlements that every single one of us knows we have to do? Hasn't the House of Representatives actually given us an unexpected 3 or 4 months in which we can do it? If President Obama wants, as I am sure he must, to begin to work on the other issues he talked about in his inaugural address--immigration, for example, and his other important issues--why would we not go to work right now, as the Republican leader says, and deal with the runaway, out-of-control entitlement spending that is going to bankrupt the program the seniors depend upon to pay their medical bills? We know that is going to happen. The Medicare trustees have said it is going to happen in 12 years, and we have all made speeches saying what we should do with it. Let's just do it. As the Republican leader says, this isn't about austerity. The Australian Foreign Minister came to this country about a month ago, and in his first address--he is a great friend of America's.…”