Political Quotes

“I join my fellow Blue Dog colleagues in voicing my concerns with the President's budget. I support the President's outline for handling the war on terrorism, but I have concerns that the domestic priorities are being somewhat ignored. We can strike a fair balance and reasonable balance between our commitment to deal with terrorism and recognizing our needs for the economy. Under the President's budget policies, the 10-year budget surplus is reduced by almost $5 trillion from what was expected a year ago. No doubt some of this is caused by the war on terrorism and the economic downturn. However, the President's budget cuts critical domestic funding for education, health care, and farmers for this year in order to reward corporate interests down the road. Even more, in order to avoid reporting deficits, the budget dips into the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, something he agreed during the election would not happen. As we Blue Dogs feared, this budget will start the public debt to rise again after reductions over the past 4 years.”