Political Quotes

“Madam President, yesterday the Senate rejected two bills to provide funding for the rest of this fiscal year. I voted against both bills, and I want to explain why and to explain what I believe is the only course open to us if we are to be serious about reducing the budget deficit. It was a victory for the American people when the Senate voted overwhelmingly to reject the spending bill sent to us by the House. House Republicans who tell us they want to reduce the deficit have proposed a cure that does little to cure our budget disease and does great damage to the patient in the meantime. The House bill proposed cuts in nondefense discretionary spending, and in that area alone. Simple math suggests that we cannot meaningfully reduce the deficit in this manner. These programs represent less than 15 percent of the total budget. Not surprisingly, then, the Republican proposal would reduce our projected budget deficit this year by only a token amount. As a matter of fact, it would reduce our budget deficit this year by less than 1 percent. The Republican plan fails the test of seriousness about the deficit, but it would have done significant damage to programs that Americans depend on. It would have cut more than $1 billion from Head Start. It would have eliminated early childhood education programs for more than 200,000 American children. It would have cut or eliminated Pell grants for hundreds of thousands of college students.…”