Political Quotes

“I am here this afternoon to discuss our work toward addressing the national debt and staving off a collision with our debt ceiling or a default on our financial obligations. First, I wish to commend Majority Leader Reid for putting forward a proposal which would make a very serious $2.4 trillion downpayment on deficit reduction and, most importantly, end the impasse over the debt ceiling. I encourage my Republican colleagues to support it or offer some reasonable changes that would allow them to support it. But let me also address some developments on the other side of the Capitol, where an extremist group of House Republicans is continuing their ``my way or the highway,'' what President Lincoln called ``rule or ruin,'' approach to these negotiations. Amazingly, news reports indicate that Pell grants--Pell grants--may be put on the chopping block in Speaker Boehner's latest effort to appease the most extreme members of his party. This is getting ridiculous. Rhode Island's great Senator Claiborne Pell first proposed the grants that now bear his name. He envisioned a grant that would enable low-income students to attend our country's wonderful colleges and universities so they too could share in the American dream. Why do these far-right extremists in the House want to snuff that out? In 1976, the first year Pell grants were fully funded, a full Pell grant paid 72 percent of the cost of attendance at a typical 4-year public college.…”