Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to Speaker Boehner's flawed plan to address our urgent need to raise the debt limit and our longer term challenge of reducing our nation's debt. First, the Speaker's plan is a short-term band-aid, when our economy and markets need certainty. Under the Speaker's plan, we would be back where we are now in a few months, facing yet another possibility of defaulting on our debt. We should pass a debt limit extension that will take us through 2012. Playing with the creditworthiness of the United States is a game that never should have been started. Second, this bill virtually guarantees cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security while protecting oil companies and the wealthiest in our country from any pain or paying their fair share. Billionaires are not being asked to pay more in taxes; loopholes that benefit the few are sacrosanct. But the programs seniors and children rely upon receive no such consideration. Finally, this bill ignores the central problem facing our nation today: we need to put more people to work so they can afford to buy the products and services that will get our economy growing at a healthier pace. We need to make investments that will pay long-term dividends. Cutting funding for infrastructure, education, and child nutrition are short-sighted decisions that will hurt us in decades to come. The people of Hawaii want Washington to change its ways. They want a compromise.…”