Political Quotes

“That is the thing that has been so astonishing is the comment that somehow we have not been listening to the seniors on this. I know I have had meeting after meeting after meeting with seniors in all the senior centers. I have had big town meetings for the whole county to come. I have had a senior citizen advisory committee, and despite the fact there is this constant barrage of scare tactics coming out of Washington, we call it ``Mediscare,'' the Democratic Party had a great leader who said, ``We have nothing to fear but fear itself.'' Now we are seeing that they have nothing to offer but fear itself. That is a pretty sad state of affairs. Despite all the fear-mongering that is going on, everytime I have been able to take our bill and sit down with senior citizens one at a time, five at a time, 200 at a time and walk through what we are offering, they all go, ``Oh, that sounds great. You mean I can stay where I am, and you guys are not going to cut Medicare?'' They keep saying, ``You are going to cut Medicare.'' The chart shows we are not going to cut Medicare. We are going to increase the expenditures for the average citizen from over $4,800 a year where it is now over the 7 years to $6,700 a year plus for a senior citizen. That is a lot of money. That will buy a lot of health care. That is a 40-percent increase. What we are not going to do is we are not going to continue to waste money in the program, so the inflation rate is 10 percent a year.…”