Political Quotes

“last week President Bush delivered to Congress his proposed Federal budget. In the coming months, Democrats and Republicans in Congress will debate budget proposals largely based on divergent cardinal moral values. We will debate budget cuts that represent more than just program scale-backs. The President's proposed cuts to vital government programs are reflective of differences in core philosophies on the role of our government in serving our people. Budgets are moral documents that reveal the fundamental priorities of a person, of a household, of a business, of a government. The President's ``every man for himself budget'' disregards millions of Americans and undercuts our Nation's values. There is no better example of where Democrat and Republican values diverge than in Medicaid. The President claims he only wants to cut programs that are not getting results or that duplicate current efforts or that do not fulfill essential priorities. Democrats could not agree more on the need for efficient government. That is how we balanced the budget in the 1990s. So we asked then, which of those three, Mr. President, is Medicaid? There is no question it is getting results. It operates at a lower cost than private health insurance. The fact is, private health insurance has grown historically at 12.6 percent a year. Medicare has grown at 7.1 percent a year. Medicaid has grown at 4.5 percent a year.”