Political Quotes

“It is fascinating when I am home in Arizona, the number of folks I walk up to who will almost pull me aside and say: I can't believe you were willing to talk about that. You told the truth. It is almost like they weren't ready to have those of us from the political class do something that is uncomfortable. The math is the math. If you take a look at mortality statistics, is it moral to have a society, particularly working, prime-age males--I mean, you were actually quoting some of the statistics in our previous conversation. They are dying younger and younger. What we have done to younger people in the country, what we are doing to seniors, we can fix this. We just have to be willing to do some difficult policy here--it is not difficult policy. There are some experiments out there--and you and I have not talked about this before, so we are winging it--where it was the food box and saying that we are going to deliver to our brothers and sisters who need nutrition support a box. There was a problem. Sometimes, the fruits and those things were thrown away, so they experimented with other ways to deliver it. It was in a microwave pouch, and it turned out that it was working. They were making people healthier, and then that pilot program disappeared. We are talking billions and billions of dollars, which means there will be armies of lobbyists in the hallway here tomorrow really cranky about what we talked about. Can we make the argument that we should do the right thing?…”