Political Quotes

“Mr. President, as I begin, I want to talk about another subject here in a moment, but I also want to react to what the Senator from Illinois said with regard to the debt limit. I think it is important to point out, as folks on the other side and the White House talk about the need for a ``clean debt limit''--in other words, a debt limit that increases the amount of borrowing without anything whatsoever attached to it--that in 7 of the last 10 debt limit debates, there were budgetary or policy items that were negotiated and attached--in 7 of the last 10 debt limits. Many of those were insisted upon by the Democrats at the time. In fact--I pointed this out yesterday--President Biden, when he was Vice President back in 2011, made statements that he couldn't understand how anybody could not understand the importance or the need to negotiate on a debt limit increase and other policy matters related, hopefully, to spending and debt. It seems to me, at least, that a debt limit debate presents an opportunity to actually do something about the debt and to address the issue of spending. There have been a number of good suggestions made in a bill that has been sent over to us from the House of Representatives about how to do that--about how to save money, how to make government more efficient, reallocate, reprioritize how we spend money, and, hopefully, reduce the amount of debt that we actually have going forward and, perhaps, the need to again raise the debt limit.…”