Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise in strong support of the Toomey- Vitter amendment, which we will vote on in the series of two votes starting at 5 p.m. The idea behind the Toomey-Vitter amendment is very simple. It says if we ever reach the debt ceiling, the government, as a top first priority, will use revenue to pay two things: first, proper interest payments on our U.S. Government debt; and secondly, Social Security checks to seniors. The motivation behind this amendment is simple. First, those two things should be legitimately a top priority. No one should want the U.S. Government to default on its debt and no one should want the immediate stoppage, or the stoppage at any time, of Social Security checks to seniors. So first, it is legitimate to rank those two functions as an absolute top priority. The second motivation behind this amendment is to take some of these scare tactics and hysteria out of this debate. Too many people, in my opinion, have been saying if we ever reach the debt ceiling, the next day all Social Security checks will stop and all payments will stop on U.S. Treasury bills--on government debt. That is not true. There is no reason it has to be true. This amendment, when passed into law, will ensure it is not true. It will ensure we look at this situation with focus and calmness and not hysteria and scare tactics.…”