Political Quotes

“let me, first of all, again, compliment my colleagues on the Democrat side, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] and the gentleman from California [Mr. Condit], who have taken some heat on this, and the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Nussle], who basically was tied to a bumper on the back of a car and dragged around his district because he decided that we needed to be responsible, when he had a flood that affected his district. Now we have come back, and we have got the gentleman from California [Mr. Condit] involved. He is not having a good day either. But I want to tell Members that the vote we are going to have is nothing new. First of all, none of the entitlement programs that were in Penny-Kasich are contained in here. We use discretionary cuts or slow the increase in discretionary spending to offset the earthquake aid. We hear about this $180 billion deficit that the President talked about. The deficit for this fiscal year is coming in at $235 billion. The 180 billion is a projection. I hope that is where we end up. But even if we get to 180 billion in deficits, that is not a reason to pop the champagne corks, because the national debt is going up 38 percent. There is a 38-percent increase in the national debt, and we all know it is future generations that will pay for this. Let us kind of get to the bottom line in terms of this amendment. We are not devastating any programs.…”