Political Quotes

“Let me just very briefly respond because I know we have a number of colleagues here. I guess the one element that I would like to respond to is the scare tactics, because it has been a fascinating year for me. I have only been here for a year and a half, and I do not have all the answers to the budgetary problems that we have today, but if we look at the issue of scare tactics, the numbers that I showed you in terms of the chart and Medicare going bankrupt were given to us, given to this body, by the Medicare trustees, a bipartisan group, three members of President Clinton's Cabinet, and that is the chart that comes directly out of their numbers. They tell us that it is an urgent problem; it is going bankrupt--again, bipartisan. The numbers that have been released recently are that things are getting worse, that part A--40 percent of the overall Medicare Program is part A--is going to be insolvent. We were told in 7 years. Now we know it is going to be 6 years, which, since it has been a year, is only 5 years from now. That is scary. That is scary. But contrast that with the number of things you see on television. Every time I go back to Tennessee they say, ``What are you people trying to do with our budget and Medicare, trying to slow the growth from 7 percent to 6 percent,'' which is what we were trying to do last year and that is what we are trying to do this year. That scares seniors. That scares seniors. If we do not do anything, that program is going broke. It is gone.”