Political Quotes

“I rise to present two amendments I have filed on this farm bill, and I will be pushing hard for votes on them right now. I hope these get a full and extensive debate and a vote. They are relevant and related to the farm bill in significant ways. The first amendment is with regard to the free government cell phone program, and of course that uses as criteria for eligibility the food stamp program and other benefit programs, so it is directly related to that aspect of the farm bill. Mr. President, as you know, this program has been exploding almost without limit, and I have some fundamental concerns about it. My fundamental concerns are pretty simple and pretty basic. They come down to two things: First of all, I think the whole program is an entitlement mentality gone wild; that we have started the notion that folks are entitled to the government, the taxpayer, providing them almost everything under the sun; and, secondly, and not unrelated, there has been widespread fraud and abuse in this program, and I am convinced it is at the core of this program and can't be scrubbed out. What is the program we are talking about? Well, it is the free government cell phone program. It was started in 2008, and in just those few years since then it has grown from $143 million that year, which itself is a significant amount of money, to nearly $2 billion now--an elevenfold increase. This program is paid for by you and by me.…”