Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding time. The issue before us is far more basic than one's view on the Affordable Care Act. I recognize that there is a philosophical difference about the Affordable Care Act: on our side of the aisle, we think it is good legislation; on the opposite side of the aisle, they have concerns. But the issue is whether the American people, whether taxpayers, ought to know the cost of the repeal legislation, whether they have the right to know how much a legislation introduced in this House costs. Now, here is the irony: the Speaker of the House, the distinguished gentleman from Wisconsin, made his entire career demanding that we know numbers behind legislation. That was his mantra in his time of service in the House. You talk to Doug Elmendorf, who was the former Congressional Budget Office Director, and he said that the one thing he respected about the Speaker is that he would actually insist on the numbers, that he would want to know how much we are adding to a $20 trillion deficit. That is why it is incomprehensible to me that, in this Congress, under this Speaker, we would ever be asked to vote on legislation without knowing the financial impact of that legislation. These are basic issues: How much is the repeal legislation going to add to our deficit? How much is it going to finance tax cuts for the wealthy? How many people will it leave out of insurance or how many people would it add to insurance?…”