Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, this Nation's debt now stands in excess of $16 trillion. This is an amount of debt greater than our Nation's economy, exceeding our GDP, and yet, Madam Chair, we have on the floor today legislation which piles upon our children and grandchildren even greater burdens of debt. Madam Chair, it's time to end the credit card economics. We simply cannot afford to continue to spend money that we're borrowing from countries like China on line items that we don't need and that Congress isn't constitutionally authorized to spend. Madam Chair, my amendment strips one such line item out of this bill. This is really low hanging fruit. You see, this Sandy relief effort was plussed up, or increased, by $1 million to boost Legal Services Corporation, funding masquerading as disaster relief. And I thought we had a ban on earmarks in this Congress. Why is a bailout for New York lawyers emergency hurricane relief? Even if you believe this is a legitimate government program--which I don't, by the way--but how can you argue with a straight face that spending on lawyers is legitimate emergency spending? Madam Chair, let me say again, we're $16 trillion in debt. We're $16 trillion in debt, America. We simply cannot afford to continue like this. We cannot keep spending money that we don't have on things that we can't afford and all the while sending our children and our grandchildren the bill. What part of $16 trillion in debt do you all not understand?…”