Political Quotes

“I come today to explain my vote yesterday for voting against the motion to proceed on this bill. I spent most of my career in management consulting. I managed large, complex enterprise projects, multiyear, thousands of hours, with a lot of complexity that takes people, process, and technology to make them work. I learned a lot in that career, and I was able to go to the legislature and take that mindset as a member of the minority for two terms. Then we got the majority in 2010, and I found myself being the speaker of the house. We were in the middle of the financial crisis. When I got sworn in in January of 2011, North Carolina had a $2 billion shortfall on a $20 billion general revenue fund, and I had 6 months to balance that budget. We did something that had not been done in North Carolina. We took the time to understand every aspect and every dollar that was being spent in government. We determined how to cut government in a way that was sustainable. We cut 12 percent from the university system budget, not at the rate of growth but the actual spending. I had some people say that it was going to be disruptive, and the University of North Carolina would never be the same again. But we did it in a way that was instructed by the operations of the university system. And we did it in a way in concert with the chancellors. And do you know what happened? We actually balanced the budget. We did do those cuts.…”