Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I listened to the Senator from Pennsylvania. I have heard his arguments. I know he is convinced of his arguments. There are several things he did not mention. The sequestration we are currently going through was a bipartisan decision. Both parties agreed to do it. In fact, the leadership on the Republican side and the leadership on our side voted for it. It was to be the outcome if we did not reach an agreement on the budget, and we did not. So now we are in sequestration. When he suggests it is only 1 percent of government spending, I would add a couple of facts. We have exempted a long category of Federal spending so it will not be subject to these cuts. For example, we have said we will not cut the pay for our military 1 penny, so we exempted that part. When we take all the exemptions out, it is not 1 percent of our budget. For the agencies affected, it is closer to 5 percent on an annual basis. Since there are only 6 months left in the year, it turns out to be closer to 10 percent that they have to cut to make the cuts for the remainder of the year, so 1 percent does not quite tell the whole story. Also, in terms of the number of people working for the Federal Government, the largest increase in Federal employment in the last 10 years has been in the Department of Defense. Why would that be? Two wars, that is why.…”