Political Quotes

“this amendment is not about roads. We desperately need roads. My State of Arizona is a growing State and it has great need for roads. But I rise in support of the Spratt amendment. It is a matter of process. This amendment sets the cart right. The bill, as it currently is proceeding before Congress, has the cart before the horse, simply put. As a matter of budget discipline, we cannot pass this bill at this time without grave consequences. Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, came before the Committee on the Budget, of which, and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) are members and said, whatever you do in this Congress, you must not break the caps. He did not say you must not break them by a large amount. He said you must not break the caps. The signal you will send to this economy is dynamic. If you break the caps at all, you will destroy the discipline you have established. This amendment will allow us the time to get the budget figures in mid month, to look at where we are and to do the process in an orderly fashion. The bill, in its current form, spends $26 billion above the budget caps. We have to find offsets that are nowhere in this current legislation. It includes demonstration projects which, as we can see by the debate, are highly controversial. We need to identify those offsets and to proceed in a regular order.”