Political Quotes

“I take the well today to remind my colleagues that you and I were not here in the House when the warning signals were up about the S&L debacle back in the early 1980's. Those scoundrels from Texas and California, Florida and Illinois took the taxpayers for $150 billion, and it was wrong. Congress should have acted in the early 1980's, and they did not. Mr. Speaker, we have a great program that seniors in this country love called Medicare. The warning signals were out there a year ago that it was going to go belly up by the year 2002. This body did nothing. We tried to get bipartisan cooperation and nothing happened. Today a report is coming out saying that it is a year worse. Instead of going belly up in 2002, it is going to go belly up in 2001, $90 billion worse than it was last year. Three cabinet members are going to sign that report as they did last year. Yet we read in the CQ facts record for Monday, Laura Tyson says that the trust fund is solvent. Bills will be paid and the administration's plan would assure solvency for a decade. Let us walk the walk instead of talk the talk. It is going bankrupt. We need to do something about it.”