Political Quotes

“As usual, I appreciate my friend from Arizona, who is, if nothing else, dogged in his determination and consistent in making clear to the American people the problem that we face on our overall spending, including mandatory. Specifically mandatory, as we refer to it, this broad basket of things that we have committed to do that is consuming our budget ever more every single year. It is an important point and one that we don't discuss enough as a body on what we should do about it. The gentleman's point is precisely correct about the nature of the problem, the seriousness of the problem. When we are sitting here right now and we are roughly--I am going to use ballpark numbers--bringing in $4 trillion of revenue, but we are spending about $6 trillion, pushing $7 trillion--he is right--it depends on what we are talking about in terms of the accounting. Basically, what you are saying is, you are printing money to fund effectively all of our discretionary budget and then some. {time} 1845 What I mean by that is, you are printing money to fund defense, the operation of the government, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, all the things that you touch and feel and see because the $4 trillion is going to fund Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, veterans benefits that are mandatory, plus interest. There you are. You have used up all of your revenue. The problem is, nobody in this town wants to do anything about it.…”