Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today with strong concerns about two provisions in this bill related to the pay-fors. First, some of the policies in this bill make sense such as extending welfare programs or better preventing incorrect unemployment insurance payments. But beyond this, instead of using the UI and trade-related savings in this bill to reduce our Nation's staggering deficit or pay for extending unemployment benefits or promoting job-creating trade, Democrats want to use these savings for new, unrelated spending. Going on a spending spree now will make the job of helping the unemployed, promoting job-creating trade, and balancing the budget next year even harder. For example, by better preventing and recovering unemployment benefit overpayments, this bill saves about $3 billion over the next decade. But at a time of record budget deficits when many States and Federal unemployment programs are bankrupt and deeply in debt, that money will not be used to strengthen unemployment insurance programs or even to pay for a needed extension of these benefits. Instead, this legislation diverts that money outside of the unemployment insurance system for unrelated spending. How that makes sense is beyond me. While we're on the issue of diversion, this bill uses customs user fees, which are fees associated with the import process and which typically are used when we are passing trade legislation to benefit U.S.…”