Political Quotes

“I come to the floor to plead with our Republican colleagues to pass the extension of unemployment benefits. I still am amazed, as are so many Ohioans and so many Coloradans and people from all over the country, that all of a sudden my colleagues care so much about the budget deficit, when if we go back 10 years, we had a budget surplus. Then three things happened. One was the war in Iraq. The Presiding Officer opposed it, as did I. But more than that, we went to war and didn't pay for it. We put the cost of the war on our children and grandchildren. There was not an outcry from anybody on the other side of the aisle saying we should pay for that war, that we should not go to war and charge it to the children and grandchildren. Around the same time, President Bush came to the Congress and asked for major tax cuts for the richest Americans. Again, the Presiding Officer and I opposed these tax cuts and said, at a minimum, if we are going to give tax cuts to the richest Americans, we need to find a way to pay for them. There was no interest on that side of the aisle when they were in the majority in paying for the tax cuts. Then soon after that, President Bush came to this body and the House, where the Presiding Officer and I served in those days, and asked for a huge subsidy for the drug companies and the insurance companies in the name of Medicare privatization.”