David Price: “I must give my Republican colleagues credit. They have used numbers and rhetoric very cleverly over these last 2 days…”

“I must give my Republican colleagues credit. They have used numbers and rhetoric very cleverly over these last 2 days, but I would urge my fellow Americans watching this debate to pay very, very close attention to the way the numbers are actually being used and also to what is not being said. For example, Democrats talked for 20 minutes yesterday about how the Republican budget seriously underfunds our first responders. The Republicans responded by saying our numbers were all wrong because their budget increased funding for homeland security. Then they listed numbers showing increases in transportation and border protection as examples. Yet they were strangely silent about funding for police departments, for firefighters, for other first responders, which was actually what we were discussing; and they were silent for the understandable reason that their budget gives these first responders far less support than they had before 9/11! We have criticized the Republican budget for creating a spiraling deficit as their spending plans and their tax cuts kick in over the next 10 years.”