Political Quotes

“Which is kind of where I am with Federal Prison Industries. I have never been a fan of them, but I have been fanatical about it just because of the sheer injustice. But this is absolutely critical right now, just like the Federal Prison Industries because we are in a manufacturing slump right now and we need every manufacturing job we can get. But this is critical because we are looking at creating a Federal benefit, expanding the Medicare program to include prescription drugs. Actually, we could probably take care of much of the problem with prescription drugs if we would just deal with the pricing. That is the scary thing. You cannot create a Federal entitlement for prescription drugs and just promise folks that you are going to, and help folks that probably genuinely need it. We are going to do that and we are going to feel good about doing that; but at the same time as we provide them with that benefit, you cannot ignore the price side. Because if you ignore the price side, we are just going to explode the cost. And if we get at the price side, we can offer more benefits to more individuals, or we can offer the same benefits at a much lower cost to the American taxpayer. That is why we need to work on the benefit side at the same time that we are working on the price side, or we are going to find ourselves with a program that we just cannot afford.”