Political Quotes

“It is not often that I can use a passage from the Bible to describe an appropriations bill, but the money- wasting allocation of funds in this bill is perfectly described by the Gospel of Matthew. It observes: For whoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. A sociologist termed this the ``Matthew Effect,'' a term for why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That is pretty much what is going on here. Why on Earth are we handing out money to fossil fuel companies? They don't need more abundance. They are receiving more than enough from the Federal Government as it is, some $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies each year. My amendment is extremely modest. It retains the $562.1 million for R&D that is in the budget--far more, I might add, than the President had in his budget of $475 million. But do we really need to increase the R&D budget for fossil fuels beyond the $563 million? Let's show the taxpayers we have just a little restraint. Fossil fuel companies are perfectly capable of funding their own research. In fact, they do. ExxonMobil alone has spent about $5 billion since 2008. If more spending on R&D is, in fact, needed, they are more than capable of funding it on their own. Perhaps they could reallocate some of the $144 million, or more than $396,000 per day, they spent last year lobbying Members of Congress.…”