Political Quotes

“Just, again, to get back to the big picture for a moment, as my friends know, we're going to spend about $3.5 trillion this year in the Federal budget. These dreaded cuts, in terms of the total budget, amount to 2.4 percent of all spending--2.4 percent of $3.5 trillion. I suspect the American people think: You could find a better way to distribute those cuts than closing our towers. I agree, actually, with my friend, Mr. McGovern. One of those towers, by the way, is in my district, so I certainly understand it. I have 20,000 Federal defense employees in my district, so I'm quite aware of the problems with the distribution of the cuts. Now, I'll leave it to my friends on the other side of the aisle and Mr. Woodward to argue whose idea this was and what purpose and how it was constructed, but it's hardly as if the President of the United States or our friends in the Senate were innocent bystanders in all of this. We tried twice last year to sit down and renegotiate. We moved something through. We've said repeatedly this year we're willing to sit down and renegotiate the cuts. To me, that's compromise. The President talks a lot about a balanced approach. Two months ago, he got a lot of revenue. That's his side of the equation. This time it should be cuts. That's an appropriate balance. We'll sit down and renegotiate where they should come from--we think we've got some great ideas on that--but they are going to occur.…”