Political Quotes

“Madam President, there is no doubt that we must take action to reduce our budget deficit. The question is, How will we accomplish this? Will we do as we have done all too often over the last few years, and protect the tax cuts of the well-to-do at the expense of middle-class families? Or will we seek a balanced approach that seeks to spread the burden of deficit reduction so that the upper income folks who have so prospered the last few years also contribute to the solution? There is no question in my mind that deficit reduction requires shared sacrifice. By that test, the legislation before us is highly problematic. True, it manages to avoid some of the most extreme budget cuts that House Republicans included in their original appropriations bill. The bill before us is surely reasonable in comparison with that extreme measure. But the test cannot be whether it is better than HR 1. We can and must do better. What troubles me most is that this legislation seeks to address the problem in only one manner, targeting nondefense discretionary programs that make up a fraction of our budget. I remain convinced it is a mistake to attack the deficit only through cuts in domestic discretionary spending, and not also end the huge Bush tax cuts for upper incomes, and close tax loopholes and reduce tax expenditures that most budget experts believe must be part of any serious deficit reduction plan. Simple math makes clear that those kinds of revenues must be a part of the solution.…”