Political Quotes

“Madam President, yesterday, the Senate tabled the amendment offered by the Senator from Oklahoma by a vote of 51 to 46. That motion to table was successful, and shortly I will move to table the two pending Coburn amendments. The Senate should reject these two amendments offered by the good Senator from Oklahoma for the same reasons the Senate rejected the other amendment yesterday. The Senator makes basically the same argument for each of his three amendments. They appear to be pretty much a set in terms of amendments. The Senator argues this emergency temporary extension of unemployment insurance benefits is the place to draw the line. It is the place to draw the line on which we need to take a stand to balance the budget. Madam President, I agree with him the Nation should turn to serious budget negotiations. Our high budget deficits are unconscionable and must be addressed. We should balance the budget over the life of the business cycle. We should balance the budget as quickly as we possibly can. But we should not balance the budget while in the grips of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Doing that would only put more people out of work. I might say, Madam President, that at a hearing held yesterday by the Finance Committee, the well-known economist Mark Zandi, who was an adviser to Presidential candidate John McCain, volunteered that this is not the time to draw that line in terms of deficit reduction.…”