Political Quotes

“I have been on budget committees for years, 6 years in the House and now, since I came to the Senate, it is a total of 13 years. This is a remarkable moment in history, as my friend has pointed out. I wanted to talk to him about why we are where we are. It has been very difficult for quite a while, back to the days of the burgeoning deficits that started under President Reagan and escalated under President Bush and only were brought under control with the Clinton-Gore team. Finally, we now can do something for the American people, do something they need. Now we can do something they need in education. We talked about Senator Murray's push to reduce class size. We see in this budget the ability to do that. We see in this budget $1 billion for afterschool care, for which we have struggled mightily, which means millions of kids are going to have that. We see the targeted tax breaks. So my question to my friend is, we are at this point and we are at this point for a reason. It was hard to get here. Fiscal responsibility does bring rewards. We tell that to our children: Save for the time you need to spend; be careful with your resources. We have done that.”