"My colleagues on the other side and this Administration will lecture us on the academic principles of fiscal responsibility and austerity by limiting deficit spending, unless it means cutting tax cuts..."
"Passing a budget resolution this particular year would change absolutely nothing."
"So we--a lot of disagreements here on what are cuts or not, and what are not cuts."
"But if you have programs--so, I mean, the point is that we are trying to accept--you are asking us to accept the fact that you are going to save money with all these alternative approaches."
"the fiscal outlook has worsened since President Trump took office."
"President Trump drove up deficits to instead gift the wealthy and corporations with a $1.9 trillion dollar tax cut."
"As Chairman of the Committee, I have stressed that we need to think seriously about severe and persistent deficits in the real economy, not just deficits in the budget."
"We have a plan on Social Security with 208 Democratic sponsors that would deal with Social Security and make it stable as far as the eye could see."
"To take the President's proposal to cut Medicare and the President's proposal to cut Social Security and call that reform by placing it on the backs of the people who can least afford it..."
"And, yes, we will need to repeal provisions of the 2017 tax law which are contributing to our current deficit without providing the growth we needed to offset it and ensure that the wealthy are paying..."
"This is not the President's fault. This is not the Senate's fault. We have to originate a budget out of here."
"It is all the Houses fault. No, before you can spend, you have to pass the House and the Senate and be signed by the President."