Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we all traveled over to the House Chamber a few days ago to hear President Obama present his jobs plan, a jobs plan for which I intend to support and fight. But during the course of that speech, we also heard the President indicate that he was going to come and make some recommendations to the Senate and to the House regarding our debt and deficit strategy. I come to the floor today to urge the White House, in dealing with our debt and our deficit issues, to pursue a strategy for cost reduction in our health care system that does not rely on harmful cuts to our seniors' Medicare benefits. I cannot tell you how important this is in Rhode Island where we have a significant senior population. Many of our seniors are low income. The average Social Security benefit is around $13,000 to $14,000. Some of the ideas that have been floated in this body--more than just floated; they have actually passed the Congress, the House of Representatives--would be devastating to Rhode Island seniors: an end to Medicare in 10 years; $6,000 in increased costs to each senior, on average, per year, hidden in what the Republicans like to call their cut, cap and balance plan, with an even worse attack on Medicare and on Medicare beneficiaries than was in the House budget that passed, which was a bad enough attack on its own. That simply is more than seniors in Rhode Island can manage. It is not fair; it is not right. And, most importantly it is not necessary.…”