Political Quotes

“So the appropriate manner in which this body functions requires us to bring it forth today. I certainly congratulate the Senator from Nebraska for his energy and initiative in putting this package together and bringing together a large number of Senators who support it. It is a logical step in the process which we have been trying to undertake here as a Government and as a Congress in our efforts to reduce the cost of the Federal Government and to get under control the spending of the Federal Government. Last year, Congress passed the President's package. That included $5 billion of spending restraints in the first year of a 5-year period. That $5 billion is going to be completely eliminated by today's supplemental emergency appropriation, which is going to require us to spend upwards of $10 billion to help out the folks in California, primarily. And that is an understandable and necessary expense. But the fact is that if you undertake the California expenditure--and I think we should, obviously, in order to benefit the people who suffered from the earthquake--you are essentially creating a situation where there is no spending restraint this year within the President's budget, because the $5 billion would have been wiped out. In the outyears, there was also not a great deal of spending restraint in the budget. This is an attempt to address the spending side of the ledger of the Federal Government through a bipartisan package of spending cuts.”