Political Quotes

“today I return to the floor for talk No. 49--49 weeks of coming to the floor to talk about what we have described as ``waste of the week.'' We originally started this about 50 weeks ago in this cycle, with some skipping of weeks when we were not in session, trying to look at ways to make government more efficient and effective and to save taxpayer dollars. We set a goal of reaching $100 billion. Whether it was the Congressional Budget Office, whether it was the inspectors general overseeing expenditures in the various agencies, we kept receiving these reports about taxpayer money that is wasted through waste, fraud, and abuse. We have talked about everything from the ridiculous to the really serious in terms of mismanagement, fraud, and waste that has occurred in this Federal Government. At a time when we cannot begin to balance our budget, when expenditures keep significantly exceeding revenues that are coming in no matter how much tax we collect, we find ourselves in a situation where we are continuing to borrow and borrow and borrow and borrow into the trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars--a truly unsustainable rate which will cause great harm to the American people at some point, if it hasn't already. Clearly, it is holding down our ability to grow.…”