Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, first of all I could not agree more with the points that all of the opponents of this measure came forth with. Yes, Russia does need help, but my colleagues are missing the point. The point is, can we afford to give Russia this money? Can we not afford to reduce our deficit by $348 million? Mr. Chairman, I have two kids at Auburn University, a great university. If they came home to me and said, ``Dad, I need a new Mercedes,'' I am sure they could give 50 reasons why I ought to buy them a Mercedes, but there is one good reason, Mr. Chairman, why I cannot: Because I do not have the money. They would say, ``Dad, you can borrow the money'' such as we would have to do here. Maybe I would borrow the money, but if I did, I would put restrictions on that and say if you did not make passing grades I was going to take the car away; if you got caught speeding, I was going to take the car away. The Chairman said we must be realistic. Let me tell Members what realistic is, it is recognizing that we are going to have to go to Japan and borrow this money to give it to Russia. Yes, it will help Russia; yes, Russia needs help; yes, we are going to leave $42 million in humanitarian aid to help Russia. But we ought not go to Japan or France or any other nation and borrow another $348 million when we cannot afford it.”