Political Quotes

“first, I want to commend the distinguished Senator from Georgia [Mr. Coverdell], and those who spoke this morning on the subject of a balanced budget amendment and the unfortunate consequences of our failure to deal with the problem of the ever-increasing deficits. We also had a few of those Senators mention, as an aside, the problem with the Medicare trust fund. I wanted to remind Senators that we had a hearing yesterday in the Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the Department of Health and Human Services, and Secretary Donna Shalala came before the committee to present the President's proposed budget for that Department for the next fiscal year. She serves, along with others in the administration, on this panel of trustees, whose responsibility it is to monitor and help keep Congress and the administration informed about the integrity of the trust fund, and supports the Medicare Program. The trustees, earlier this week, talked about the fact that the worst case scenario for future deficits in that program had been exceeded, and that rather than having the program go bankrupt, be hopelessly insolvent by the year 2002, it was going to be bankrupt earlier. By the year 2000, it would be out of balance by over $30 billion, and the following year, it would be out of balance and in deficit at the figure of $100 billion.”