Political Quotes

“There are no tough choices here. I talked to the gentleman whose seat I took the other day. I said, John, you know, when you were up here as a Congressman, you made it look fun. Folks were always saying thank you, thank you, thank you for all the spending that was going on here. I said, I don't get to make any fun decisions. When you've increased the public debt in this country by 50 percent over the last 4 years, you're all out of giveaway decisions. All we have now are tough decisions. That's all we have. And, again, I know that my friend from Massachusetts speaks with passion and conviction. His advocacy for the neediest among us is an inspiration on the floor and in committee and on and on, and I don't fault him for that a bit. But I would say to my friend, had we not given that payroll tax cut to Members of Congress, we could have provided that food stamp increase that you discussed earlier to an additional 2 million individuals in this country, an additional 2 million individuals in this country had we foregone that tax increase right here. But we didn't. We chose just to go along with the program and cut away, spend away. We can't do that. We've got to stop that. And I would say to my friend, because it's hard, I have the same families struggling in my district that you do. In fact, our foreclosure rate in my district is higher than it is in your district.…”