Political Quotes

“Madam President, reserving the right to object, here is what I believe: We need to do everything possible to protect Medicare recipients and stop bankrupting our essential programs. Senator Johnson has told me repeatedly that he has been asking for years. The Postal Service says they are putting all this money into Medicare, and he has had a simple request: How much money is the Postal Service paying for Medicare, and what are the recipients at the Postal Service receiving in benefits? No one can ever give an answer. I asked for a CBO score. They said this is going to cost at least $6 billion, and it is going to increase our deficit by at least $5 billion. So we have an unfunded program in the Postal Service, and we are going to move it and hurt our Medicare recipients. My amendment--and I was told that this would not cost Medicare anything, so my amendment is pretty simple: whatever the incremental costs to Medicare are should be paid by the Postal Service. I mean, it is the Postal Service retirees; they are the ones who ought to pay for it. So I don't understand why we wouldn't want to do this. I was told it was not going to cost anything. By the way, the CBO score that is out there already says it is going to increase our deficit, and it is going to put our Medicare Program in worse shape. They can only give us numbers for the first 10 years. After 10 years, the numbers are going to be worse than the numbers I told you about.…”