Political Quotes

“Mr. President, to make a very brief response--and I know my colleagues have been very patient--I just want to make sure that everybody really put in context the remarks the Senator from Florida made. He is basically saying that if you don't address healthcare now, if you don't address education now, if you don't address roads now, that somehow there aren't going to be any consequences. There are going to be very real consequences. People are going to be sicker, for example. We are going to spend much more down the road. We have a weakened and smaller economy, and we will have that for an unknown amount of time. My colleague mentioned his concern about weakened national security. How can a semi-permanently weakened economy not affect national security? Of course it is going to affect national security, and it is going to affect national security badly. Finally, I will make one additional point, and I know my colleagues will address this as well. My colleague from Florida talks about deficits. I am the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, where we sat through my colleagues' tax bill--a bill that he voted for, and he strongly supported it and said it is going to pay for itself; what is to worry about? Nobody does deficits better than that side of the aisle. Nobody does them better and bigger and in a more irresponsible way. I wanted to put that in context. I look forward to the remarks of my friend from Connecticut and Nevada.”