Political Quotes

“I know it sounds good to say we are going to cut everything across the board. But, again, Members have got to remember, if they vote for this amendment to cut across the board, they have got constituents at home who they are going to have to answer to. Why did you take money out of the high-intensity drug traffic areas, why did you take money out of the drug czar office, which our leadership has asked that we put in, why did you take money out of missing and exploited children? Yes, we have pastry cooks and, yes, we have political appointees that get paid salaries which some of us may think are outrageous. But the other side of the coin is, every administration is supplied with a budget for their political appointees and how they use these people is up to them. We face the problem of addressing that particular issue as administrations change. That budget is there for one administration after the other. I think that is where we get into some real problems. Again, I know my colleagues are well-intended. But we have cut $1.2 billion out of this budget since January of last year. We have tried to do it in a responsible manner, in making those cuts where we can make them. Reference was made to ATF and the church fires. The money that we put into ATF and the church fires we took from the IRS. So if we are going to cut another 1.9 percent, that does not make a whole lot of sense either.”