Political Quotes

“I know that the viewers can see the passion that exists within Congressman Baron Hill. He is a great Member of Congress. He is a good leader of the Blue Dogs. I am happy to serve with him and to call him my colleague. He has explained what the PAYGO rule does. It makes us make the hard choices. If money just grew on trees, we could do any program we wanted, but somebody has to pay for these programs, and we either pay for them today or we borrow the money and send the bill to our children, along with an interest bill, down the road. We think that's immoral. We think it's wrong, inherently wrong. I know Mr. Hill said that the Blue Dogs care passionately about PAYGO and about getting this thing back on track. We went to Speaker Pelosi after the 2006 election and said we would like to do this. We know that we can't get a statutory PAYGO, which is one that goes into law. As you know, Mr. Speaker, in order for it to go into law, the House would have to pass it; the Senate would have to pass it, and the President would have to sign it. We were assured by some other bodies and the White House that that wouldn't happen. So we asked the Speaker to at least put a rule in place in the House of Representatives that would make the House abide by PAYGO. We knew it wouldn't be as good as statutory PAYGO, but it would, in some ways, serve the same purpose. It would be a rule for which the House would have to take a two-thirds vote.”