Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are trying to resolve one of the great problems I am sure my colleagues are sensitive to; that is, the infrastructure of this country. Today we have two witnesses next to each other, the head of the AFL-CIO and the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to show that liberals, conservatives, labor, and industry all feel this should be at least the second highest priority in America. When I heard the President's budget yesterday and I looked at it, I shook my head in disbelief: $8.7 trillion in new spending, $1.6 trillion in new taxes--all these things. I remembered back when I was complaining in 1996 at this very podium during the Clinton administration. That was his budget. It was $1.5 trillion. Do my colleagues know that the deficit in this President's budget is greater than the entire budget of 1996--to run this whole thing called America. It was a shocker to me. It reminded me about how people talk about entitlements and how we are going to have to do something with that. Something we can do right now is something I tried to do last year and the House Members are trying to do right now. When the President gave his message, he talked about how he was going to freeze nondefense discretionary spending and everyone applauded, thinking that was a great austerity program. In reality, he is talking about after he has increased it from 2008 levels to 2010 levels and then freezing in those increases. That is what I find unreasonable. So I am reintroducing S.…”