Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Before I start my formal presentation, let me say the gentleman from Arizona is correct. We do need to take responsibility on both sides of the aisle. Very frankly, I will tell my friend we had an opportunity to take responsibility when the Bowles-Simpson Commission voted. There was a vote in the Senate. It was divided somewhat, but mostly they voted for it in the Senate. We had one of our people from the House vote for it, a Democrat. None of your representatives voted for Bowles-Simpson, I guess, because it wasn't perfect. That was a missed opportunity--it was a doggone shame--because that would have made 14 votes, and we would have had that on the floor in the Senate and in the House. I think this is a missed opportunity because I don't think this is a real document. Now, frankly, I also think that we had a deal. We had a deal as to what the discretionary number was going to be, or as we call it in the jargon of the House, the 302(a) allocation, which the gentleman as a member of the Appropriations Committee knows about. We had a higher number and you had a lower number, and we made a deal in between. We haven't kept that deal. We haven't kept that deal because you couldn't get the votes in your committee, in the Budget Committee, for that deal. {time} 1700 So here we are, Madam Speaker. The chairman of the Budget Committee has spoken of a choice between two futures. He is correct in framing it this way.…”