Barney Frank: “we stand accused by the gentleman from Illinois of recognizing reality. The reality is there is a budget. It limits the…”

“we stand accused by the gentleman from Illinois of recognizing reality. The reality is there is a budget. It limits the amount of money we can spend. If you spend on one set of things, you cannot spend for another. That is reality. If in fact you give large tax cuts to people who are very wealthy, you will have less money that you can spend elsewhere. The gentleman says, ``Oh, let's not have class warfare; let's just have the wealthy and the middle class and the working class all get along.'' It sounds like Woody Allen's statement, ``the lion shall lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won't get much sleep.'' The wealthy and the poor can work together, as long as the poor are prepared to be submissive. The Republican plan says that you will get some help in paying for prescription drugs, up to 150 percent of poverty, $16,000 a year. If you are a retired individual making $20,000, $25,000, $28,000 a year and you get hit with a drug bill of four, five or six hundred dollars a month, the Republican position is we cannot afford it. Now, we say you could afford it if you did not give large tax cuts, and the gentleman says, Oh, that is class warfare. That is not class warfare, that is reality.”