Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise today to speak about the omnibus bill that we are going to be voting on either later today or tomorrow. I came to the Senate almost 12 years ago. I have 9 months left in my term. I told folks back home that I couldn't imagine serving more than two terms. Yet it has been an incredible privilege to be here. When I ran, I ran concerned about our Nation's fiscal issues, and I ran on the combination of pro-growth tax reform and entitlement reform and dealing with the tremendous deficits that our country has. I really thought we would do something about it. We had the financial crisis that took place back in 2007, 2008, 2009--building in 2007 and occurred in 2008. We dealt with much of it over 2009. I remember talking to people around our country not just about the financial crisis but about the tremendous deficits that our Nation was creating. I was still hopeful in my first term that we would rise to the occasion and actually deal with the fiscal issues that are going to haunt these young people who are our pages sitting before me. We have $21 trillion in debt today and over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities with our long-term programs, our mandatory spending programs. So during that period of time, near the end of my first term, I kept saying to people around the country: There is no question that the Senate and the House, with leadership from the executive branch, will deal with this fiscal issue.…”