Political Quotes

“I rise to give my strong support to the right-to-know amendment. The American people have a right to know what a balanced budget means. If a balanced budget amendment is added to the U.S. Constitution without a plan for how to balance the budget, we will leave the American people in the dark. Mr. President, I will not defend every line item in the Federal budget. I believe we must look at the mission of programs. If a program achieves its mission and helps people, it should continue. If not, it should be scrapped. However, before we adopt a balanced budget amendment, we should know exactly what it is that we are doing. We need to know just how these programs are going to be affected. What cuts are going to be taken. How deep. What programs. And most importantly what the consequences will be to the health, safety, and security of the American people. My first question is how a balanced budget amendment will affect Medicare. Achieving a balanced budget in 2002 will require cuts of between 20 and 30 percent in Medicare--between $75 and $100 billion in 2002. What will this mean for seniors? Medicare already pays less than half of older Americans' health costs. In the year 2002, older Americans are expected to spend more than $4,600 on health care premiums and other out of pocket health costs. But a balanced budget amendment could make seniors pay $1,300 more. What will that $1,300 mean?…”