Political Quotes

“I want to thank the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Sanford) for his leadership in cosponsoring this particular amendment with me. We introduced this amendment because, with a nearly $17 trillion debt, the Federal Government can no longer continue to subsidize wasteful programs and policies. The programs that this amendment would eliminate--some of them in my own State--do little to achieve their intended purpose of economic development. These are wasteful programs that the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, and even the Obama administration have found to be duplicative and possessing no track record of success. In his 2012 budget, President Obama eliminated Federal funding for the Denali Commission, for example. His argument, which I agree with, was that the Denali projects are not funded through a free market or a merit-based system. Additionally, the White House noted that there are 29 other Federal programs capable of fulfilling this commission's mandate. I would submit that this is also the case for a number of other commissions--for example, the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Delta Regional Authority, the Northern Border Regional Commission, and the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission--for which we reduced and eliminated the funding. Of particular note and concern is a recent report from the Denali Commission inspector general, which states that $100 million is missing from the Denali Commission bank accounts.…”