Political Quotes

“And the gentleman knows that there are three legs to this stool that we are talking about. One is the increase in spending leading to the deficit. One is the misplaced priorities of the cuts to programs that are critically important. The third is what's left out of this budget that we all know we have to deal with, and I'm going to save that discussion for a little bit later as we walk through some of these programs. But the full cost of the Iraq war and the cost of the alternative minimum tax relief for this year are not included in this budget. So a $407 billion deficit without even including probably the two largest items that we are going to have to face in the next year, we'll get to that point, but there are a lot of issues here. When I talk to people when I go back home in the district, I hear a lot about entitlement spending, and when I go home, I think I can make a pretty good case that Medicare is important and we shouldn't be cutting Medicare at a time when the number of people qualifying for Medicare is rising exponentially and health care costs are going up. I can make a pretty good case, I think, for that. But I will still hear people say, You know what? I'm not on Medicare. That's an entitlement program. I don't care about that. Cut it. It's a boondoggle. Just cut it. I do hear people say that. They're wrong, but they say it.”