Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Levin, for your compliment to my great State of California. Mr. Speaker, when I first heard this legislation was coming to the floor, I anticipated with some positive thoughts of, yes, this is the right thing to do. America must pay its bills. We know how to do that. We want to go forward, assuring the American people that, when we decide not to default on our debt, we are showing our strength, even though it may be difficult for people to support that. Then I heard that it was going to come up like this. On Sunday, they told us it would be up on Tuesday and that the bill is predicated on a false premise. It says the Congress finds that the President's budget proposal, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2012, necessitates an increase in the statutory debt of $2.4 trillion. Well, that is just absolutely not the case. First of all, that bill never passed the House and it never passed the United States Senate. What did pass the House, though, was the Republican budget plan, which abolishes Medicare, gives tax increases to Big Oil, gives tax breaks to corporations sending jobs overseas, weakens the middle class, and does not create jobs. And, in fact, increases the deficit by $1.9 trillion. It increases the deficit by $1.9 trillion. So what are we doing here today? What are we doing? The Republicans have introduced a bill which they have now resoundingly said that they will oppose. So where is the good-faith effort here?…”