Political Quotes

“I have just a couple of comments. Again, with regard to the whole question here of forming a commission to recommend savings to Congress, one of the problems we have in Government now is that we have too many commissions. The cost of these commissions averages, I am told, about $2 million a year. So what the Congress is being asked to do here, in essence, is to fund a $2 million commission to tell the Congress what to do. I thought that is what we were elected to do, and I thought that is what the American people were paying us to do. At the end, I think this commission has a 1-year life, after which it must be reenergized and reauthorized by the Congress. I would predict this Commission would be like all of the rest of the commissions; once you have it in place, it would endure almost into perpetuity. The bureaucracy of this Commission, which would be paid by taxpayers' dollars, would be up here lobbying the Congress, saying, 'Keep us in place another year or 2 or 3, and we are going to get this problem solved.' Before you know it some people would have their friends over there on the staff of this Commission and the administration going out of power, or an officeholder who happens to lose an election would suddenly end up over there on this Commission. So it becomes another sinecure for various and sundry individuals, all at the expense of the taxpayer. What is it all about?…”