Political Quotes

“I thank my good friend from Colorado. In 1729, an Irish satirist by the name of Jonathan Swift proposed a novel solution to child hunger and general poverty in Ireland. He recommended that Ireland's poor pull themselves up by their own bootstraps by selling their children as food to the rich. That would nourish the rich, earn the poor parents some much-needed cash, and solve the child hunger problem all at once. Some people took him seriously. Most realized the point that he was trying to make. Today, the House majority has a somewhat similar kind of modest proposal, without Mr. Swift's sense of humor or irony. To ensure that our elderly are cared for, let's cut the pay of those responsible for their health. To make sure our food and drugs are safe, let's diminish the benefits of those whose job it is to screen for safety and unintended effects. To find a cure for cancer, let's punish the researcher who works daily to save millions of Americans from that disease. To care for our wounded veterans who are sent by this body to fight in foreign lands, let's make their caretakers find a second job. Madam Speaker, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle may justify their vote today by boasting of freezing their own pay, but that was already accomplished in the fiscal cliff legislation. The bill before us today will freeze, for the third year in a row, every Federal employee's pay.…”