Political Quotes

“Part of the air of unreality in Washington is the myth of our inability to contend with budget reductions and the threat of sequestration in stabilizing America's financing. No doubt the draconian hand of across-the-board cuts in every program from food safety to border control to air traffic control would be foolish and destructive. Let me be clear. The major problem in all of this is here in Congress and our political structure, which creates self-inflicted crises. Sequestration and the postal deficit are just two examples. We know what to do, but you would never know it because we spend most of our efforts around here describing and decrying the problems rather than doing something about them. Let me repeat. The amount of budget reduction is something that can, in fact, be managed if only we change how America does business. Nowhere have the cries been more anguished than about the impact of sequestration on the Department of Defense, ironically, from many of the same people who insisted on the sequestration gimmick in the first place. As is widely recognized, sequestration over the next 10 years when applied to the Pentagon's budget would only reduce it in inflation-adjusted terms to what it was in 2007 when the most powerful military in the world was engaged in a war in Iraq and the challenge in Afghanistan.…”