Political Quotes

“The last time I checked, under the Republican budget reconciliation proposal, the Balanced Budget Act, Medicare spending per beneficiary was to increase from $4,800 a year to $7,200 a year. Yet they used the term ``slash and burn,'' and the fear and demagoguery. But do you know what, I do not think it is going to work, because the philosophical foundation of this tactic is that seniors are dumb. They have to think that the seniors of this country are dumb; that they cannot read; that the seniors will ignore the fact that the trustees just last week, and we have a quote coming up, I know, from my trusty assistant, reported just last week in the Washington Post, April 29, 1996: ``The Medicare trust fund that pays hospital bills for 39 million elderly and disabled people will go bankrupt sooner and accumulate far deeper deficits over the next decade than previously projected by the trustees.'' Now, short-term political calculations, which have ruled this town for 40 years, would dictate that the three of us ignore this language, because you know what, that will get you reelected. The folks on that side of the aisle know that. It kept one party in control of this town for 40 years on the basis of fear and class warfare. But I do not think that the seniors in the Second Congressional District of Maryland sent me here to be a politician.”