Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I wish to first thank Senator Murray again for her leadership on the Budget Committee. Day in and day out, month in and month out, she has been working on this budget and she has achieved, along with the committee, a smart, balanced proposal for meeting our country's fiscal challenges. This is not the first time I have come to the Senate floor to talk about the critical need for a balanced approach and to bring down our debt in a balanced way, but this is the first time in a long time I have actually felt optimistic that we are going to get a budget through the Senate and optimistic that there are a lot of stirrings of bipartisanship and compromise. While our budget, as has been pointed out and I will point out, is very different than the House budget, I think there are still grains of compromise there. We have seen this willingness in the Senate, with our Republican colleagues, to talk about bringing the debt down, whether it is the Gang of 6 or the Gang of 8 or whether it is the work of Simpson-Bowles or the work done with the Rivlin-Domenici group. These are all reasonable proposals. We don't agree with everything in them, but they are all reasonable proposals and they contain some balance. The other reason I am optimistic is that we have a great opportunity here. I was reminded of this last week when former Republican Senator Judd Gregg testified before our Joint Economic Committee.…”