Political Quotes

“Yes. And the reason we lock in--reclaiming my time--the reason we lock in the number is because, as the Senator from Louisiana knows, if we did not block grant this program and did not reform this system and allowed what happened, for example, under the Daschle amendment, to occur, AFDC would continue to grow. In fact, the Federal commitment would be even greater in 5 to 7 years. So the fact we lock it in now, many would say, because of inflation, is ``a cut.'' We are in fact locking in. In fact, I think one of the biggest criticisms I have heard from the other side of the aisle is that what we are in fact locking in, that is not generous enough. We need to give more. In fact, we had an amendment there today to put in $7 billion more. We had an amendment from the Senator from Connecticut to put in $6 billion more for children. There is a barrage, and I assume it will continue, of amendments from your side of the aisle to say we should be spending more. We are going to try to strike a balance.”