Political Quotes

“I join my colleague from Georgia in commending the membership of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and particularly the leaders of this group, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson--great patriots, people with a great history of service in their own right. They have come forward with some recommendations in their preamble. They make it clear none of us like every element of the plan, but they put forward a plan that I think is a starting point for us, and we intend to use these next few months--frankly, we intend to use the runup to the vote we will have to take on the debt ceiling around April of 2011--to make real progress. Let me subscribe to several of the statements made in the preamble of this fiscal responsibility commission. They say: 'We cannot play games or put off our choices any longer.' I think the American people know that, and they expect leadership from their elected representatives in the House and Senate in that regard. The report and the preamble go on to say: 'The American people are counting on us to put politics aside,' and that is what we are trying to do on the floor today.”