Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I rise today because we have to get our fiscal house in order, but sequestration is not the way to do it. There is no question we need to address our unsustainable debt and deficit. Our debt remains above 73 percent of GDP--up from 36 percent just 6 years ago--and our deficit still hovers just below $1 trillion. But the solution must be a big, balanced, and bipartisan deficit reduction plan modeled on plans like Cooper-LaTourette over a 10-year period, not the meat-ax approach of sequestration. We can't pursue deficit reduction at all costs. The cure shouldn't be worse than the disease. The sequester will undermine our growing--but still fragile--economic recovery. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts sequestration would halve economic growth for 2013. Another study projects job loss in 2013 alone would hit 2.1 million jobs, mostly from small businesses. We just went through this not more than 2 months ago, as we remember, the fiscal cliff. Sadly, we seem no wiser for that experience. We continue to bicker rather than plan; we posture rather than negotiate; we delay rather than decide. We go from one crisis to the next, thereby threatening our economy and further undermining the public's tenuous faith in its political institutions. We lack a comprehensive approach to just about every challenge we face, including climate change, energy, transportation, health care, social insurance, defense spending, immigration reform and gun violence.…”