Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I am reminded of an old saying, and my dad, who grew up on a Yellow County, Arkansas, farm says it to me often. He says: Son, when you find yourself in a hole, quit digging. Mr. Speaker, if we pass H.R. 2440, we will have added yet another shovel full of deficit to our Nation's fiscal situation. I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Oregon has 7 minutes remaining. Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman said he wants healthy trust funds. Well, we got a heck of a healthful trust fund when it comes to harbor maintenance, but we also have a massive deficit in harbor maintenance. We are projecting that we are going to need an extra $15.8 billion between now and just 2020 to meet the demands of larger and heavier ships that are going to come through the Panama Canal and come here. How are we going to meet that? Well, we could spend the harbor maintenance trust fund on harbor maintenance, but, no, it wasn't part of the budget caps. Go out and tell that to people who are dependent upon getting their goods in and out of the Nation's ports and say: Oh, well. Sorry. We can't do that jetty. We can't dredge that harbor because we can't spend the money that we took from you and put in the bank, even though the need is not being met.…”