Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are considering today the highway bill and the FAA bill. The highway bill is a trust fund. When we hear the words ``trust fund,'' we should have trust that money is only spent on highways. Unfortunately, that money has been spent through the years on other items. The same applies to the Social Security trust fund and with the Medicare trust fund. It is all sent to the General Treasury, and it is not protected. What I am asking today through this amendment to the highway bill is that we keep the trust fund separate and the trust fund spends only money that comes in from the gas tax. If we continue to spend money that is not coming in from the gas tax, this will be money borrowed from China or simply printed, and there are ramifications to borrowing $40,000 a second. So my amendment to the highway bill would say we only spend what comes in through taxes. I consider this to be responsible budgeting and what we should be doing and likely what we were probably obligated under the original trust agreement to do. So I urge passage of this amendment which would limit the highway trust fund to that amount of funds coming in through taxes. My second amendment is to the FAA bill. This amendment says spending in the FAA bill go to 2008 levels. Since 2008, spending in our government has gone up 25 percent. We are mounting a deficit of $1.5 trillion. Our Nation's debt is $14 trillion. There are significant ramifications to incurring so much debt.…”