Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and to the leaders on both sides, John Maynard Keynes, that noted economist, once said that the difficulty lies not in generating new ideas, but escaping from the old ones. We cannot seem to get away from, in this Congress, wanting to do all things for all people. All the language and all the rhetoric that has been used today, all of it sounds great, $800 billion in tax cuts over 10 years, $1.7 trillion over 15 years, a lockbox for social security funding. The only problem, Mr. Speaker, is that it does not all add up. We want to do all of these wonderful and great things, but the party that touted fiscal responsibility for so many years has now assumed the role that they accuse liberal Democrats of assuming for the last 15 to 20 years. I know they have good people on their side that can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. It is only my hope and certainly that of my colleagues on this side that those folks who cannot add and subtract come to the forefront, add this budget up, realize that it does not add up, and do what is right. Let us save social security and Medicare first and then bring about those tax cuts. If we win the lottery, we should not spend all our money at the casinos, we should take care of the debts and obligations first, and then take care of the things we want to do. We ought to do the same thing in this Congress.”