Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I want to speak for a few minutes today about the effort that we are undergoing right now with the Vice President and our colleagues in the House of Representatives to find a way to constrain spending, reduce our deficits and debt sufficient to warrant an increase in the debt ceiling, as the President has asked us in the Congress to do. We are told by the Secretary of the Treasury that by around the first part of August the United States will run up to the debt ceiling and, therefore, Congress needs to pass legislation to extend that authority. Essentially, this is because financial commitments the United States has already made can only be paid if we borrow money to pay those financial commitments. Therefore, the debt ceiling would need to be increased. Members of both bodies on both sides of the aisle have acknowledged that one of the primary things we need to do at the same time we raise the debt ceiling--if that is to be accomplished--is to ensure that we don't have to keep doing that in the future; that is to say, that we don't keep piling on more debt by increasing spending in the future so that certain things will be necessary at that time: constraints on future spending; limitations on the ability of Congress and the President to pass additional appropriations for spending; for example, setting limits on our budget for the next at least couple of years so we know exactly how much Congress would be authorized to spend.…”