Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I have been listening to the debate this morning. It is concerning to me because as a physician, I am trained to diagnose disease. Disease, if you break that word up, is ``dis'' and ``ease.'' We are not at ease, and I hear us talking all around. I listened to the senior Senator from New York very carefully and what he had to say, and I wanted to spend a few minutes actually disputing what he had to say. Because the premise he said was if we don't raise taxes, the vital things that are legitimate roles for the Federal Government would have to be eliminated, and I find that very curious because what is lacking in the Senate body today is an actual knowledge of all that we are doing. I go back to March when the GAO report came out on the levels of duplication within the Federal Government, and that report was eye opening to many Senators. The fact is that report only covered the first third of the Federal Government. I have long said during the past 7 years in the Senate one of our problems is the government is so big, we don't know everything it does. What came out of the report was a tremendous list of duplication, programs that do exactly the same thing in multiple different agencies. For example, we have 124 different programs to encourage students in math, science, engineering, and technology. Why would we do that? Why would we pay for 124 sets of administration?…”