Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the highway bill. I understand there will be a cloture vote tomorrow and then potentially, if that is achieved, final passage the day after. I want to say again that I appreciate the efforts of so many in various areas, that my comments today are not intended to be directed at any individual or either side of the aisle. I was elected in 2006 and I came in during 2007, so I have been here roughly 8\1/2\ years. One of the reasons I ran for office was to deal with our Nation's fiscal issues. I was so concerned about the direction in which our country was going. As you know, just about every military leader we have will tell you that the greatest threat to our Nation's national security is us, those of us here in Congress, and the way we deal with our fiscal issues. The simplest fiscal issue I know of to solve is the highway bill because it is simple math. It is not like Medicare, where all these actuarial issues have to be dealt with and you have to make assumptions about the impact on care and all those kinds of things. The highway bill is just simple math. It is so easy. There is money that comes in and there is money that goes out. I think everybody in this body knows the highway bill was set up based on a user fee program where people who are using the highways pay for that through user fees and then the money would be there in a trust fund--a real trust fund--where, in fact, the money would go out.…”