Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlewoman. Madam Chairman, this month we're all focused on the debt and the deficit and our negotiations to try to balance the budget. So it's with great pride that I tell the House that all 54 members of the Financial Services Committee, both Republicans and Democrats, have unanimously passed out of the committee a bipartisan piece of legislation which will save the U.S. Government and the American taxpayers $4.2 billion over the next 10 years. It does that without decreasing any of the benefits of the program. It does it in some commonsense ways. One is that premiums will be actuarially sound. They will be based on the risk, and we will be eliminating subsidies to bring the program into balance. We further insulate taxpayers from losses by adding a reinsurance provision whereby part of the premium that people pay, just as if they do on their house or for wind coverage if they have a home on the beach--part of it is in private insurance laid off into reinsurance. The program today, if you eat up the reserves, then the Treasury is responsible for making up the difference. After this legislation goes into effect, there will be reinsurance that will be purchased, and the taxpayer will only be exposed after risk-based premiums are exhausted, reinsurance in addition to that is exhausted. So we reduce taxpayer exposure to a tremendous extent. Also, people have said, why is there not private insurance?…”