Political Quotes

“First let me tell what the third option is. We ruled out cutting benefits, we ruled out increasing payroll taxes. If anything, we said, we need to reduce payroll taxes and lower the tax burden, particularly on working people. The third option is, we will borrow the money. We will borrow our way out of the crisis. Then I tell them that do you know that we are going to be spending more money on interest on the Federal debt in the next 7 years than anyone is going to spend on Medicare? Of course we reject those three options out of hand because not a single one of them deals with the real problem. In fact, every single one of those measures creates more problems than it solves. I say we settle on the one choice that made the most sense, which is make the tough decisions to reform the program, create options for senior citizens, protect those who want Medicare but give other choices, and that if we give more power--and this is a radical idea for this city--if we give senior citizens the right to make choices about their own health care, I mean, the very idea that we are going to give the beneficiaries of a program the right to make choices, and I describe to people in Maine that in Washington that is sacrilege.”