Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the discussion has boiled down to a desire by the President to have the largest debt increase in the history of America at a time when our spending is out of control, and this debt ceiling limit that we have now reached is at a point where it does need to be raised. I thought we had a national consensus that as part of raising the debt ceiling we would begin to change our habits around here; we would do things better; we would not be running up so much debt because every witness who has testified before our Budget Committee has said we are on an unsustainable path. They mean that. We cannot sustain the debt path we are on. We have never been in a deeper fix. The President wants this huge debt increase, but he only wants to have a very modest decrease in spending. The bill that is before us would decrease spending about $927 billion. It might sound like a lot, but over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, we will increase the debt of America by $10 trillion--$10,000 billion, not $927 billion. That will not change the debt trajectory. We have to have more than $927 billion in spending reductions. It appears we are not going to be able to get that. The Democratic majority in the Senate will not allow it and say they are prepared to let the country default if we try to cut any more. So we have to continue the dialogue and the debate about the course we are on. Why is it so important to get a bigger debt ceiling increase?…”