Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy in permitting me to speak on this just as I appreciate his setting the stage in terms of why we're here, in terms of what President Obama inherited when he was elected to office. But another reason we're here is that the Republican leadership doesn't want to work with us in a balanced and reasonable way to reduce the deficit and get us on a sustainable path. Nothing is a greater illustration of this than the response to an amendment that I offered in the Budget Committee. On Monday, when we were dealing with this, I offered up to my colleagues: Instead of eliminating food stamp benefits for 2 million people, cutting benefits early to 20 months, reducing benefits for 44 million people in total, school lunches for 280,000 children, I said, Wait a minute. Why don't we work together on something that we agree on? I've worked with the chairman of the Budget Committee in the past to try and reform agriculture subsidies. We got reconciliation instruction from the Ag Committee that takes it all out of the nutrition for poor people, for children, for struggling families. I said, Why don't we go to where we agree: crop insurance wastes billions, and direct payments go to farmers who don't need them and don't deserve them. We have an opportunity to put reasonable limits on the amount that goes to the wealthiest agribusiness interests. We've worked on that together. A majority of the Budget Committee, I'm sure, agrees.…”