Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the Budget Committee chairman, the Senator from North Dakota, has, in fact, laid out a budget. It puts us on a serious road toward budget balance by utilizing real numbers, not sleight of hand numbers, not budget fakery numbers, not a budget as a political document but a budget as an economic document. And it nips--indeed, it savages--the annual deficit and the Federal debt of $4 trillion over 10 years. This is real money, and it is real money that is basically in balance between $2 trillion of spending cuts--which we have had all of those kinds of talks going on down at the White House, and they seem to get to an agreement of $2 trillion of spending cuts. But when it comes to the revenue side, there seems to be an unwillingness to accept revenues. What I would like to do is elucidate further on the Budget Committee chairman's presentation yesterday or the day before of this budget on how we can produce $2 trillion of new revenue and it not be considered as just straight tax increases but, instead, of going to two other parts of the Tax Code that have been off limits to so much of the tax planning and tax cuts that we have been talking about. Of course, I am talking about the $14 trillion of tax expenditures that the Federal Government expends by not having that tax revenue coming in to the tune of $14 trillion for special tax preferences over the course of the next decade.…”