Political Quotes

“I noted last week the Republican leader came to his desk and spoke about the budget and described our Democratic budget as a leftwing manifesto. We have done $1.8 trillion in spending cuts already. We raised $600 billion--one-third of that--in revenue by restoring the Clinton-era tax rates for families earning over $450,000 a year. So in the balance between spending cuts and new revenues, it is already 3 to 1 in favor of spending cuts. In our budget, we propose to fill the gap of the remainder with 50 percent spending cuts and 50 percent revenue and that is a leftwing manifesto. The Republican budget changes Medicare into a voucher program. The Republican budget cuts nondefense discretionary spending to levels lower than at any time since OMB started keeping track a half century ago. The Republican budget would set annual domestic spending at rates lower than 1962, when there were no Pell grants at all, when 30 percent of American seniors lived in poverty. But that is not extreme. A Democratic budget that is 50-50 spending cuts and revenues, that is a leftwing manifesto. The Democratic budget has $975 billion in new spending cuts and it has $975 billion in new revenue in order to close that budget gap 50- 50. That means, including the deficit reduction we have already done of $1.8 trillion, we will be, in total, at $4.3 trillion in deficit reduction, which is probably just a little bit over the target that most of the experts have given us to hit.…”