Political Quotes

“I have a very short time, but I wanted to make that point that you kept buying mints; you just didn't keep paying. Madam Speaker, this bill is another instance of this Republican caucus walking away from its responsibility. The budget sequester was never intended to be a solution in and of itself. It was meant to be the blunt instrument to force compromise. Unfortunately, ``compromise'' is a dirty word around here in some quarters. To lay out conditions, as this bill does, requiring one side to concede before negotiations even begin--and while solving only part of the problem--disregards sequestration's fundamental purpose: to be equally unacceptable to both sides that it forces compromise. {time} 1630 This bill, which I strongly oppose, essentially says, let's pretend. Let's pretend we don't have a deficit challenge. It says, let's pretend that we can solve our problems by cutting domestic spending alone. No rational human being believes that's the case. No cuts to Republicans' favored programs, no elimination of tax loopholes for oil companies or anybody else, no increases in revenue by asking the wealthiest to contribute a little more to setting our country on a sound path. We're collecting the lowest amount of revenues we've collected in 70 years in this country, and we haven't cut spending, and we increased spending in the last administration very substantially.…”