Political Quotes

“What is facing the United States Congress right now is a decision of where do we go to help make sure that the economy keeps growing. What do we do in terms of President Bush's suggestion on tax cuts? How far should we go on those tax reductions to achieve tax fairness? How do we make sure that what we do is going to help make the economy stronger in the long run? I would like to start with a chart that represents how the Federal Government spends money. This chart represents the spending of the Federal Government. And as we see from this pie, the largest expenditure is Social Security. So Social Security takes 20 percent of what the Federal Government spends. The next largest, of course, is the domestic discretionary budget. That is what this Congress, this body, the House and the Senate, with the White House, debate and argue on every year in 13 appropriation bills is the discretionary spending, in addition to defense. Defense spending is 17 percent; interest is 13 percent. That is why paying down the debt and continuing to do that is very important. Today, this House made a decision that we were not going to spend any of the surplus coming in from Social Security taxes or Medicare taxes. I think that is a good start. Our goal has got to be to try to reduce the increase in spending of the Federal Government because the question that everybody in this Chamber needs to ask, the question that America needs to ask is how high should taxes be.”