Political Quotes

“I would share a few thoughts in general about where we are. Our colleagues on the Democratic side have said they want more taxes. They have not told us what taxes, how much, and where they would be. But they have told us that. Senator Conrad has said that. He has also been open and bold about the need to cut spending. So he wants more tax increases than I would like and he wants substantial spending cuts, but that is his view. He stated it publicly. But I will have to say, that is not the position of the Democratic majority in the Senate because they have refused to put it on paper. Senator Conrad was going to have a Budget Committee mark up. We were going to mark up a budget. He was going to lay out a plan. I guess it would be somewhat ``Simpson-Bowlesish.'' But it was not offered because the leadership and I suppose the members of the Democratic Conference agreed that they do not want to be on record. They would rather do like last year. And what happened last year? They voted against the Toomey budget; they voted against the Ryan budget; they voted against the Rand Paul budget; and voted against the President's budget. They wiped their hands. They did not vote for anything to cause any pain to anybody. And presumably they thought that was better than actually being engaged in leading and telling the American people what they planned to do to change the debt course we are on. That is the deal. Well, I would say a couple of things.…”