Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I reluctantly rise to oppose the gentlewoman's amendment, my good friend from Tennessee. I appreciate her concern for the out-of-control spending that goes on in Washington. I think a lot of people are concerned about that. The problem is that she has got the wrong approach. She pointed out very clearly that we have already reduced the spending in this bill by 6.5 percent. We oversee and fund about 20 different agencies, and we have said we are going to reduce the overall spending by $1.5 billion, 6.5 percent. But when you do an across-the-board cut, you lose sight of the fact that some programs are actually working well and others are wasting money. And we did that. That is what the appropriations process is about. We have eight different full hearings. We have 1,800 Member requests from both sides of the aisle. While we reduce spending overall, we have some good programs that I think my good friend probably really doesn't want to cut. For instance, we have something called the Small Business Administration. That is an agency that helps small businesses finance their next big deal, and we increased the spending for SBA because they are the ones that create jobs. They are the ones that grow the economy. They have programs that help women-owned businesses, and I don't think she really wants to cut them because they are doing the job they ought to do. You have got other things like HIDTA. You hear people talk about that, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas.…”