Political Quotes

“Thank you very much. This evening I am going to be joined by several of my colleagues. And as they come to the microphone, let me just lay down some of the facts. Not more than an hour ago this Chamber voted on Speaker Boehner's proposal to deal with the debt limit. Very interesting comments that he made prior to the speech--and while I can't quote them precisely--he did say that his whole strategy started way back in January when he told the President that he was going to use the debt limit as a way of getting his way. Well, we saw what his way is, and that's what was voted on today without any support at all from the Democrats and a lot of Republicans saying that it was not the right way to go. So what did he propose? We have two very, very basic paths that are facing the American public today. One of those paths is a path that we voted on, which is a path to basically unravel most of the things that America holds dear. In order to carry out the caps and the $2.5 trillion in reductions that are in that legislation, we would have to decimate Medicare. There is no way it could possibly continue to provide the services to our seniors and similarly Medicaid, of which 70 percent of that money goes to seniors who are in nursing homes. And so those two critical parts of the foundation of the American society--that is providing health care to our seniors and the aged, blind, and disabled--are going to get unraveled as a result of the legislation that passed.…”