Political Quotes

“Madam President, the amendment I have presented to the floor for the FAA bill is an amendment that I think is a first step toward looking at budgetary restraint. The President, in his State of the Union Address, talked about freezing spending at 2010 levels. If we were to do that at the inflated levels of 2010, we would add $3.8 trillion to the debt over the next 5 years. It does nothing to the looming debt crisis to leave things at 2010 levels because these were levels where we had already increased spending by over 20 percent. What I am asking is a very modest proposal; that is, that all spending go back to the 2008 levels. This is not a significant cut. We have increased things dramatically in recent years. FAA has been increased in funding by 50 percent over the last 8 years. We can fund the upgrading of NextGen and various things by looking for cost savings within the bill. These are things we must do. The American people are demanding cost savings. The American people do not understand why we must pay inflated rates for our wages for the workers on Federal projects. They do not understand why Davis-Bacon wages, which were often 30 percent higher than the wages paid on other projects, private projects, must be paid. People are familiar with this even in their home States when you talk about the building of schools, how schools cost 20 and 30 percent more because of having to have inflated wages and extra regulations, extra paperwork that the Davis- Bacon laws require.…”