Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we had two important votes yesterday on what we are going to do about the surging debt this Nation is incurring and the dangers that debt poses to the future health of our economy, the prosperity of our people, and the employment of our people. We had a debt crisis, a financial crisis in 2007, that we still have not recovered from. It damaged us. It damaged American individuals. There are people unemployed in large numbers because of that. We have not yet recovered from it. We have some growth, but we have not yet come out of it. We have to deal with it in a serious way. So the proposal was, as passed by the House, to reduce the spending for the rest of the 7 months in this fiscal year ending September 30 by $61 billion. Our colleagues in the Senate basically proposed to do nothing, a $4.6 billion reduction in spending over the rest of this fiscal year. That is an unacceptable number. Perhaps we can disagree over where cuts ought to occur, but it is critically important at this time in history, as I will discuss, that we take real action that sends a message and actually saves money, not Washington speak about saving money, but real savings in money. We can do that. Every city, county, and State is doing that all over the country, and far bigger reductions in spending than we are discussing here. So the House proposal was to reduce discretionary spending $61 billion, which is about a 6-percent reduction in the planned spending level.…”