Political Quotes

“Mr. President, why in the world would you have a budget process going on separately from the committee? I think there are some simple truths that lay out why. The reality is that this Congress tried to control spending. They did it by proposing increases last year of roughly 3-percent. That may not sound like cuts to people outside the U.S. Congress, but in reality a 3-percent increase was less than the rate we had been on and less than what the natural law provides with the automatic increases in a variety of programs. The President honestly, sincerely felt that we ought to increase spending at least 4, 4.5 percent. Thus, they did not reach agreement. Mr. President, that fact has not gone away. The reality is that the President of the United States wants much more in the way of an increase in spending than the Republican Congress wants. There is no way around that. It is not going to change tomorrow. I think we all hope that the President will sit down with Congress and work out an arrangement. But that has been tried, and the reality is, the two parties have dramatically different views of what is good for the country.”