Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we just heard the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who is also chairman of the appropriations subcommittee, give the typical Washington talk on why we can't cut spending. In light of the fact there has been a 45-percent increase in his area of appropriations, we now can't come back and give 5 percent of that back to the American people. Forty-five percent growth in 2 years, and we are picking winners and losers? We are not picking winners. The only winners we are picking are the American people. The fact is, there hasn't been a major program eliminated by the appropriations subcommittee in 5 years. What they do is, once they are there, they are there forever, and nobody is willing to make the hard choices. That is typical of all the talk we will hear about why we can't cut $120 billion from the expenditures for this year--$120 billion out of $3.4 trillion, and we can't come up with 5 percent. We can't find it. We are giving you a way to do that. Everybody is going to get to vote, and we are going to send a message to the American people. At the rate we are growing the government, it will double in the next 5 years, and we can't find 5 percent, when they are having to make 10, 15, 20, and 25 percent cuts in their own budgets. What we heard was the typical appropriations response: We work hard, let's save this for appropriations. The problem is it never happens because every bill, somewhere, has a small constituency--every program.…”