Political Quotes

“Thank you very much. I'm pleased to participate in their conversation, and I just want to make a few comments, and then maybe we can talk further about really what the Republicans proposed in their budget. We sit on the Budget Committee. We went through 12 hours in what we call here in Congress a markup, but really it was a debate and a real reflection on the contrast between what the Republicans are offering to the American people and the way to tackle what are very, very serious financial problems for the country. I think we all agree that they're serious, that we have to make sure that we take seriously the deficit and bring down the deficit over time and be able to get to a balanced budget at some point and begin to pay down the national debt. We all agree on that. The real issue here is how do we do it? What are the choices we are making? What's on the table for discussion? And we offered up a number of suggestions and ways that we might take some of the money--you've talked about this already before I got here, about the tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, the tax subsidies for the five largest oil and gas companies. We're talking about literally hundreds of billions of dollars here, that instead they have chosen to protect those subsidies and those tax breaks and instead to make real cuts in what we believe are some real priorities for us. So budgets are all about choices and priorities.…”