Political Quotes

“like everyone else in America, we need to tighten our belts and learn how to do more with less. For the first time in over 8 years in the Senate, we will reduce spending in an area of the budget known as entitlement spending--for the first time in 8 years. As we all know, entitlement spending represents over 54 percent of total Federal spending today. It is going to continue to grow steadily in the years ahead. The infrequency with which this body addresses entitlement legislation underscores the importance of the bill we are about to vote upon. For the first time since 1997, this body, the Senate, is taking action to reduce or slow that growth in Federal entitlement spending. The legislation before us today will reduce spending nearly $40 billion over the next 5 years. If you extrapolate that out to 10 years, it is about $100 billion. For some, particularly on the other side of the aisle, this legislation--and I want to put that in quotation marks--``cuts too much.'' Let me respond by saying entitlement spending is projected to grow from $1.3 trillion to over $1.7 trillion in 2010--$1.3 trillion to over $1.7 trillion over the next 5 years. If you add that up, over the next 5 years, the cumulative entitlement spending will top $7.8 trillion. The bill we have before us reduces that figure, the $7.8 trillion, by a total amount of $40 billion. That is about a half of 1 percent.…”