Political Quotes

“Madam President, there has been a lot of talk in the last 24 hours about so-called dueling plans to raise the debt limit and avert a dangerous default to this nation's financial obligations. As far as I can tell, the only dueling going on in Washington today is between the Republican Party's multiple personalities--and there are quite a few. Last night I introduced an amendment that I thought was fail-safe. It would prevent default using only proposals Republicans have already supported. Yet House Republicans had harsh words for the Democrats' plan yesterday--odd, considering every bit of our proposal was taken from the Republican playbook. Let me explain the plan. It would avert default while cutting $2.7 trillion from the deficit in the next decade. It would cut more money, more quickly, than the competing proposal introduced by Republican leaders yesterday, and it would last for a long time, not just a few months so we would be back in the trenches doing the same thing at Christmastime we are doing now. The proposal includes no revenues, as House Republicans insisted it must not. It holds harmless even the most wasteful of tax breaks and giveaways to big oil companies and billionaires, which Republicans have vowed to protect even if it costs our economy in the process.…”