Political Quotes

“gentlemen and ladies, last year, during the welfare debate, I heard speaker after speaker come to this floor and say that we had to end the practice of paying people to do nothing, that we should no longer pay people not to work. Something remarkable happened that day. Every single Member of this body voted to no longer pay people for not working. Many of us supported the coalition plan, the rest of the folks supported the Republican plan, but everyone supported at least one plan that would stop paying people for doing nothing. And it was remarkable, and it was a good thing. Unfortunately, in this bill there is a plan to pay people up to $80,000 a year per individual for 7 years to do nothing. You do not have to plant a crop, you do not have to work a field, you do not have to work fences, you do not have to start the tractor, you do not have to do anything. You do not even have to try to farm, and you get $80,000 a year. Earlier today this body by a majority voted to raise the debt limit up to $5.5 trillion. We are spending $2 million every 4 minutes on interest on the national debt. Where do we stop? I am not going to criticize the whole bill, but I can tell you, freedom to farm is a bad idea, because you can never wean people off Government dependence by paying them to do nothing, whether they are a welfare mother or whether they are a father who happens to be a farmer. It does not work.”