Political Quotes

“Madam President, I will speak for just a few moments on something I think is the most important issue facing our country today. I can't think of a better time than the first day of the new session in the U.S. Congress to address it; that is, the Federal deficit. I am proud to say that later this week, Claire McCaskill from Missouri will be joining me, along with Richard Burr, John McCain, Senator Alexander, and Senator Isakson in something called the Cap Act. The bill takes us, over a 10-year period, from where we are in spending at the Federal Government level as a percentage of our country's economy, the gross domestic product, at 24 percent, down to the 40-year average which we have had in this country, as I mentioned, for 40 years, of 20.6 percent. It puts in place a construct or a straitjacket on Congress that allows us, over time, to take a methodical, thoughtful approach to spending at the Federal level but to actually have to do it. This bill, which we also offered as an amendment during the lameduck session--it is now a stand-alone bill--again, we will be offering it a little bit later this week. We hope to have additional cosponsors from both sides of the aisle. What it would do is take us from where we are today down to that average.…”