Political Quotes

“I submit what is a very simple and straightforward amendment today that strikes, I think, at the heart of one of the major problems that we all have with the President's proposal. To set the stage for this amendment, let me go back and set the background, starting with where we are today and how we have gotten here. The President proposed in his budget, the 1997 fiscal year budget, that there would be immediate downward adjustments to discretionary caps after the year 2000 if the Congressional Budget Office projected that his budget would not balance in the year 2002. The Congressional Budget Office, second, has estimated to us that President Clinton's fiscal year 1997 budget submission will, indeed, incur a deficit of $84 billion in the year 2002. Now, as a result of the CBO's projected deficit in the year 2002, the President's budget will trigger drastic, drastic reductions in discretionary spending in the years 2001 and 2002. It is important for my colleagues to understand that these drastic reductions which will kick in would have to occur in those nondefense programs such as education, the environment, crime control, science, veterans, and other human resource programs. It is also interesting, and, again, important for our colleagues all to understand, that 100 percent of the nondefense discretionary cuts in the President's budget that occur in 2001 and 2002, over that 2-year period, 100 percent of those cuts will occur.”