Political Quotes

“I suppose I and a lot of my colleagues had an opportunity to hear the President's speech this afternoon. It is very nice that the President is being engaged for the first time in the budget debate and the long-term fiscal problems of this country, and the deficit problems of this country. It is good he is following on with some of the recommendations of his own deficit reduction commission. We have to remember a little less than a year ago he appointed a deficit reduction commission. They reported on December 5. It seems as though they had broad bipartisan support because the four Senators on the commission--two Democrats and two Republicans with probably very different political philosophies of the four--have endorsed it. Then, all of a sudden, since December 5 until today, there has been a lot of quiet on the part of the President of the United States about whether he likes what his deficit commission suggested. I don't know the details of where he is coming from, whether he agrees with every detail that is in the deficit reduction commission recommendations, but at least he is getting on board along the lines of what 64 Senators--32 Republicans and 32 Democrats--said in a letter about a month ago to the President: We are ready to start tackling some of these big problems, but we need leadership. Maybe this speech today is an answer to that leadership.…”