Political Quotes

“If the gentleman will yield, several of the State senators have written to me, and, in fact, I believe I'm quoting Governor Perry correctly in that it would be a $23 billion cost over the 10 years. We do our budget for a 2-year time period, so for the next five budgets. Now, as the gentleman knows, Texas has not been hit quite as hard as some other States by the recession, but it's still been hit. In the next election, the people who are elected for the next State legislature, for the next State senate are going to have to deal with a budgetary environment that is going to be a great deal tighter than any since probably 2002 or 2003. As a consequence, Governor Perry has tasked all of the various interim Senate committees and House committees to look for 5 percent of savings across the board in the State budget. So they are serious about getting their budget into balance. Of course, by law, they have to do this, and they are looking for every State agency to cut its budget by 5 percent. That's significant when, at the same time, the Federal Government is now saying, because of the increase in Medicare enrollment that you're going to be required to take, the budgetary expansion brought about by this health care bill will be $23 billion over the next 10 years at a time when every other State agency is being constricted. So are we saying that federally mandated health insurance is more important than education of Texas children? Apparently we are.…”