Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, I do rise in support of this joint resolution. It's not because I want to, but because it is necessary to support it today. It is necessary because we are stuck in a situation that results from the previous majority's lack of completing its work last year. I think we need to step back and just look at the situation that we were handed this year. For the first time since the Budget Act of 1974, Mr. Speaker, the House failed to pass a budget last year. The House also failed--except for two occasions--to pass appropriation bills. The Senate did nothing. So what we are left with today is this mess that we are in with no fiscal year 2011 budget, no appropriation bills passed last year, nothing done. So we are given this mess today to clean up. And what we need is a little more time. But in the meantime, we are going to cut spending, $6 billion of cuts, $2 billion a week for the 3 weeks that this bill will be in place. It's not enough. We have got to look at the overall problem that we have in this country: $14.3 trillion of debt, an annual 1-year deficit of $1.65 trillion. Now, while this just scratches the surface, we have got to address long-term spending here in Washington, DC. We have got to look at not just the discretionary side, which this bill does, but look at all the entitlements. We are only addressing about 15 percent of the whole budget in this bill.…”