Political Quotes

“Absolutely. The party with the majority, 53 Senators, ought to be able to pass a budget. We passed a budget with 51 senators one time. A budget allows us to control everything but Social Security. We can't touch Social Security but we can deal with Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, pensions, as well as the discretionary accounts. So that was all avoided. My friend has been around here and in the House for a number of years, but it seems to me it would have been a healthy thing indeed for the Democrats to have brought to the floor a budget, even if I didn't agree with it. We then could have had a national public debate about these difficult choices the Nation faces and Senators would have to vote as to whether they believed that balancing the budget was worth cutting some spending here, and how much they believed in taxes we ought to raise, and how much would they be cutting in spending. We could read the fine print and ask how much we are cutting and actually debate and vote on these things. But that is what the majority leader and his colleagues wanted to avoid.”