Political Quotes

“I want the public, Mr. Speaker, to understand that a caps deal is not a budget. They are two separate items: A budget is a plan for expenditure on defense and nondefense objectives. A caps deal is to simply set not necessarily those priorities per se, but to set a top level of discretionary spending. That is why it is called a cap. It has been about $1.1 trillion or $1.2 trillion--now, it is going to be a little over that this year, I presume--for discretionary spending. Most of the budget, of course, is not discretionary spending. Two- thirds of the budget is either mandatory spending or debt payment. I just want to clarify that we are talking about two separate items. One is a budget, which is a budget plan which can, in fact, include caps within it, but a caps deal is a separate deal. As the gentleman has pointed out, we have usually made them now for 2 years since the sequester would otherwise have gone into effect. The reason we made that deal is both sides--both sides--are unwilling to follow the sequester because we think the sequester does not make rational sense for the security of our country and for the investments our country needs to make. The President doesn't want to do that either. The difference is, he wants to borrow an additional $180 billion-plus to fund defense and leave domestic discretionary spending largely at 2010 or 2009 levels. We think that doesn't make sense.…”