Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank Senator Collins very much for her kind words. I know we both care a great deal about this situation we are in, as I think most of the Members of the body do. What is so frustrating is that it is avoidable. This is not something that has to happen because we are facing a crisis. This is happening because of what we have done in our actions. So we can undo these actions, as the Senator points out. I share the Senator's belief that we need a comprehensive solution. We have to look at all aspects of the budget. We need to look at domestic, defense spending, mandatory programs, and we need to look at revenues. Comprehensive tax reform--that is a way we can address that. There are areas of bipartisan agreement that we ought to be able to take action on right away. We have had a number of GAO reports that make recommendations on duplicative programs within government. We are already working to control the long-term costs of health care, to close tax loopholes, and on defense spending, we all know there are still reforms that can be done, as the Senator pointed out. We can get better physical controls. We can end some of the fraud and abuse in contracting. That is just the beginning of a list that, I am sure, if we all dedicated ourselves to coming up with a compromise on how we avoid the sequester, we could do.…”