Political Quotes

“Yesterday felt like Groundhog Day. America woke up, got more bad fiscal news from the Bush administration, and predicted years and years of growing Federal budget deficits. We learned this weekend that the $400 billion Bush Medicare plan passed and signed in December was, in fact, going to cost $539 billion. Americans were surprised to learn that most of that first extra $139 billion, most of the first $100 billion will go straight into the pockets of the drug companies, the group that helped to write the prescription drug bill in the Oval Office. The other $39 billion is going to shore up the taxpayer-financed payoffs to encourage insurance company HMOs to provide Medicare coverage. Well, that bad news was not much of a surprise for those of us who work regularly with the White House. President Bush, in the State of the Union, said the new Medicare measure kept a basic commitment to our seniors. The President in that bill may have fulfilled a commitment or two, but it was not to the Nation's elderly.”