Political Quotes

“Madam President, the Appropriations Committee is reportedly preparing to announce the return of earmarks. That is a process that, around here, we know. People back home might not know, so let me explain that the process of earmarks inserts individual projects designated for specific interests into a bill, most often an appropriations bill. When I say ``individual projects,'' it means Senators doing it for probably their district or their State. Earmarks are a practice that has become a symbol to the American people of the waste and out-of-control spending in Washington. I am strongly against the return of earmarks. The earmark moratorium was implemented as a direct result of the events leading up to the election of 2010, and there was clearly a mandate coming from that 2010 election to do away with earmarks. So people sometimes think, through the elections or through contacting Congress, they don't have an impact. In this case, it had a very dramatic impact that has lasted at least until now, and hopefully it will last longer. The American people spoke because they were worried at that time about the country's growing Federal deficit and ballooning public debt--something we aren't as concerned about now as we were then and we ought to be concerned about more so now because the debt has more than doubled during that period of time. At that time, back in 2010, the debt was estimated to be 62 percent of gross domestic product.…”