Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am not sure whether I rise for or against this, very frankly, because I think this process is not the process that we ought to be pursuing. I think in that context I speak for the chairman and for the ranking member and for most Members in this body. I was going to wait a while, but then I heard Mr. Dent of Pennsylvania speak and I want to reiterate this point that he made, because I made it last week in my colloquy with the majority leader. I made the point that we are about to make the largest single reduction in discretionary spending that we have made, the gentleman said in history; I was more modest and said in the 30 years that I have been here. But in any event, this is not an insubstantial cut. The problem those of us have on this side of the aisle is it is not enough for a large number of your folks, and they have said so, and the Heritage Foundation has said so, and the Family Research Council has said so, and some of your Members have said so. Now, the fact of the matter is this is a lousy way to run a railroad. We are trying to run the largest enterprise in the world in 2-week segments. It is costly to the private sector, it is extraordinarily inefficient for the public sector, and it is demoralizing for the private sector who deals with the government and for the public employees we have asked to perform the services that we have set forth as policy. And so I say at this juncture, this ought to be the last of this type.…”