Political Quotes

“Mr. President, if the differences are meaningless maybe our Democratic colleague would agree and we would have an agreement if it is so insignificant. But it is not totally insignificant. If you take $61 billion in spending down from the baseline as the House legislation that they have passed and sent here does, it reduces spending by $61 billion. If you do that, it reduces the baseline $61 billion. My staff on the Budget Committee has calculated that would save $860 billion over 10 years. Those numbers have not been disputed. In fact, it does make a difference. We are on the wrong trajectory. We need to get on the right trajectory. Our Democratic colleagues, it seems, have to be dragged, kicking and screaming out of denial and into the reality that we are spending too much. We are running up too much debt. I am pleased to see they have agreed to consider these proposals and have passed a couple of continuing resolutions to fund the government at a slightly lower level. That is progress. We have avoided shutdowns to this date. Hopefully we can avoid another one. But if we have another short-term agreement today, it is nowhere close to what is needed to put our country on a sound financial course. We have been warned we are facing another recessions if we do not change. That is what we have got to do. This spasm has come about because our Democratic colleagues' failed to pass a budget last year. They did not even bring a budget to the floor.…”