Political Quotes

“short memories are just that. In my opening statement in the Finance Committee on this bill, I made it very clear I opposed the pay-for in this bill. I had two amendments to offer. They were not offered because the chairman had assured me beforehand that he would object and rule them nongermane, even though they were not nongermane. As a matter of fact, we had offered what the Obama administration had already offered in terms of trade duplication--a $200 million pay-for that the administration supports. So let's talk about what is really going on here. We are a country that is $15.8 trillion in debt. We have a process that is not open, really, to the consideration of addressing real pay-fors for a real bill that I agree needs to pass. I have no objection to the underlying policies in any of the three components in this bill, but there is a process we continue to practice which has our country bankrupt. That process is the following: We are going to spend $200 million over the next 3 years, and then we are going to take 10 years to pay for it. We have $350 billion in waste, fraud, and duplication in the Federal Government that we have done nothing about as a Senate. Not one thing have we done to address the issues that are wasting the hard-earned money of the taxpayers of this country.…”