Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, tonight I join colleagues from both parties in focusing attention on what is truly one of the quietest and most avoided crises in America today. I speak very directly of our Federal budget and, in particular, its unsustainable, crippling Federal deficit and debt. This silent but accelerating crisis threatens all of us, not only these generations, but generations into the future. This crisis is all of a fiscal crisis, an economic crisis, a social crisis, and a security crisis. Mr. Speaker, it is a crisis that we are, frankly, busy denying. We are certainly avoiding it and explaining it away, but I think we all know instinctively in this country, and some of us know very consciously in this country, that it is an imminent crisis. Tonight, colleagues of both parties and I, all of us members of our Bipartisan Fiscal Forum, which has 87 bipartisan Members of the House who are committed to facing and solving this threat, want to discuss this issue in a very brief discussion to assure we do not keep sweeping this crisis under the rug. We will highlight how our Federal finances work, what is going wrong and why, what are the severe consequences if we don't correct the cause, and what can we do about it. I will go into details later, but I first want to invite my colleagues to share some of their concerns and perspectives. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.…”