Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I want to share some thoughts on an amendment that Senator McCaskill and I offered earlier today. I note that a number of people are anxious to vote and finish up. If and when that time comes, I will be pleased to yield the floor. The amendment we offered, which would place statutory caps on spending--and that cap level that we picked was in our budget. It is what the Senate passed in the budget last year. It represents an increase each year, which is 1 to 2 percent annually. This is a budget number basically passed by our Democratic colleagues. So what we are saying is, let's adhere to that. If we adhere to that level of spending, then we can begin to make progress. A similar type of statutory cap was placed in 1990, renewed in 1997, helped lead us to the only 4 years of budget surpluses in recent memory, from 1998 through 2001. After that, the statutory caps were allowed to expire. We find this was something that actually worked to help us contain excessive spending. This amendment would say that number that is in the budget for the next 5 years would be firm. We would put it in statutory language, but, of course, it can be exceeded by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, and the statute itself can be reversed by 60 votes of the Senate. It is not something that constitutionally would be firm over managing our system. It is consistent with previous actions of the Congress. It worked, and I believe it will work again.…”