Political Quotes

“Madam President, saving money requires a lot of very difficult choices: Which programs do we cut in these tough times? Which priorities are more important than others? As we have seen in the Senate and across the country over the last few months, a lot of people have a lot of different answers to these questions. Democrats believe we have to get our spending under control, and we have to look at what needs to be cut. But we need to have a fair program, one that looks at what we are going to do long term with the equities of our spending programs. We have to look at what we do with revenues to make sure they are fair and balanced. So there are a lot of choices. My friend, the Speaker of the House, gave a speech last night in New York. He talked about raising the debt limit and some of the things he thinks would be necessary in order to get that done. But I would direct the attention of my friend, the Speaker, to one way it would go very quickly to solving some of these problems. We know there is waste in the Federal budget and the Tax Code, but what I want to direct the attention of my friend, the Speaker, to is these five big oil companies. We, as taxpayers, are giving billions and billions of dollars every year to these companies--billions every year. Every cent of it is taxpayer money to oil companies that already are more than successful. These oil companies made $36 billion in profits during the first quarter of this year.…”