Political Quotes

“I wish to say a few words in favor of the Conrad-Gregg amendment which will shortly be before us and in opposition to the Baucus amendment. I have worked for some time to try to produce legislation that would create a commission which could be like a BRAC commission and deal with what I consider to be the most formidable problem facing this government. Every Wednesday during the summer and spring, I have a constituent breakfast. One of the things I do at that breakfast is show what debt and deficit really means. One of the best ways--you learn this when you do a budget, and I learned it when I was mayor of San Francisco and for 9 years put together a budget--is to look at what is actually spent, total numbers. That gives you the real clue. It is called outlays, Federal outlays. What have Federal outlays been? In 2009, 50 percent of everything the Federal Government paid out went to entitlements. What are entitlements? Medicare, Social Security, veterans' benefits--things that cannot be controlled--if you are entitled to them, you get them. Look at interest on the debt, which is 5 percent. If you look at discretionary defense, it is 18 percent. And if you look at everything else the Federal Government does that everybody talks about--education, agriculture, justice, the 22 agencies in Homeland Security--it is just 16 percent of what is spent.”