Political Quotes

“When we have talked about this, because we have time when we are in meetings to talk about this--I want you all to try and just bear with me a little bit. I know that at some point, you say, I don't know if I like this dog-and-pony show. In my district, PA-16, the average income for a family of four--mom, dad, two children--is $54,000. This is where it really starts to make sense. Federal revenues this year will be the highest we have ever gotten. They are projected to be $5 trillion. That is a lot of money. I mean, it is almost incomprehensible. What we are projected to spend is $6.9 trillion. You say, okay, well, that is only--that is not that far apart. It is only $1.9 trillion. Here is what it means. This is where it starts to sink in. That means a family that I represent in western Pennsylvania earning about $50,000 a year is spending $69,000 a year. You see what we are getting to. Because when we reduce the numbers down, first of all, the high numbers are just so high, it is unimaginable. It is also unimaginable that we can ever pay the debt down. I would just say this to you. If we continue on the path we are going, if we disregard the basic math that stands there, and the way we do it--I can tell you that most of the time that I pay monthly bills, it is at our kitchen table. I open my checkbook, and I start doing the subtract, subtract, subtract, subtract. I am just trying to understand how we can be so reckless.…”