Political Quotes

“What my friend says about people being able to rely on this budget, about the honesty and integrity in the budget, it really is contrasted with these deficit numbers that you see coming out of the White House, because there is not an honest broker in this room who would not tell you that if you continue to run these deficits, eventually you are going to hit the wall. You are going to have to pull the rug out from under current beneficiaries. That is what bankruptcy means. Mr. Speaker, that is what we mean when we say ``bankruptcy.'' We don't mean that Social Security goes away and Medicare goes away and you get zero. We mean you are still stuck on the program, but we are slashing your benefits in half overnight. That is immoral. It is immoral to make promises to people and not keep them. I don't want the gentleman from Indiana's job, Mr. Speaker. I don't want it. Being vice chairman of the Budget Committee is hard because you have to make tough decisions. And the decision that the Budget Committee made was we can be honest with folks who have not yet attained Medicare age that the program will not be there for them as it was for their parents if we make no changes. We can keep our commitment to older seniors--those folks on the program--to say, if we promise it to you, you are going to get it.…”