Political Quotes

“I have a concern. It is not about trade. Quite frankly, trade is one of the things we have done as a nation all along. We were free traders before we were a nation. One of the grievances we had in the Declaration of Independence was the fact that King George was restricting our trade. We have always been individuals in a nation of trade. My issue is particularly with this Preferences bill. Again, it is not about the protections in it; it is about the way we pay for it. Now, as odd as it sounds, while we are doing trade and while we are trying to engage in things, we can't lose track of this simple thing called deficit that is hanging out there as well. We have basic rules on how we actually handle budget issues. For anything that we set out that is going to take several years to pay for, we have basic rules. Those rules include that it has to be deficit neutral in year 6 and it has to be deficit neutral in year 11. The way that is set up and the reason that it is set up is so that you cannot game the system that way. You can't just backload the whole thing and say: We are going to be deficit neutral in the very last year, but every other year we are going to run up the bill and have some pretend pay-fors at the very end. So the way this is set up is to have this basic gap. Halfway through, you are deficit neutral. At the other end of it, you are also deficit neutral. Well, this is what the Preferences bill does.…”