Political Quotes

“I rise today to join again in the debate occurring in Washington on bringing our Federal budget into balance and facing up to our looming debt limit. Our Nation right now is like an overburdened ship wallowing in the seas. We are in danger as a nation of foundering if we don't sort this out. As former Comptroller General David Walker testified to us in the Budget Committee over a year ago, we face ``large, known and growing structural deficits that could swamp our ship of state.'' To get the ship in trim, we need to make adjustments. We need to reduce the deficits and ultimately reduce the debt. We agree on a lot. We need to cut spending. Democrats and Republicans agree on that. We need to protect ordinary families who enjoy ordinary levels of income from tax increases. Democrats and Republicans agree. The disagreement here in Washington is whether we also need to raise some revenues for our Nation in other areas to help balance our national budget--areas such as oil and gas and ethanol subsidies that we could close and contribute to fixing our budget deficit, closing corporate tax loopholes, bringing to an end high-income, tax-dodge schemes. The Republicans are threatening that they would rather sink the boat than raise revenues in those areas. Just this week, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called on President Obama to take any revenue raisers ``off the table'' and to focus only on spending cuts.…”