Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this tax package that the House will consider shortly. While there may not be unfunded mandates per se in the bill, this will impose a burden on States and local governments and everyone else here. And particularly it will add a huge burden to our kids and our grandkids, because we are borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars that will go directly to the deficit and directly to our $14 trillion national debt. On November 2, I think we got a pretty good message from the taxpayers. They wanted us to stop running deficits and to start paying down the debt. Yet before we even get to the new year, just weeks away from the election, here we are, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit and to the debt. This compromise shows that Washington just doesn't get it yet. We simply didn't get the message we were supposed to on November 2. I do support the extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that were enacted, and we also have to find a remedy for the death tax. But we've got to do it in a different way than this. Congress can take swift action to ensure that taxes don't go up, but we shouldn't be adding the other items that we're doing here. It's taken on the seasonal theme again, of course. It's become a Christmas tree. I'll explain a few of the items in it. But it just notes, more than anything, that we haven't gotten the message, that we're just going about things the same way we always have.…”