Political Quotes

“as we come to a conclusion of this debate, Senator Harkin said something that was pretty insightful. He said: Show me your budget, and I will show you what you value. Refuse to show me your budget, I will say, and I can say you are refusing to show what is important to you. One of the things that has been brought up is the war costs. The war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan has been expensive, no doubt about it. Last year the total for both wars over 10 years reached $1.3 trillion--10 years--both wars. That was the deficit last year alone, $1.3 trillion. This year the war costs are declining. The year we are in, we are spending $118 billion on the war. Our deficit will be $1,200 billion. So eliminating all war costs would be less than 10 percent of the amount of our deficit. I say that so we understand what has happened. Over 50 percent of our spending is in mandatory entitlement programs--Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, retirement benefits. Those are huge and they are increasing at two, three times the rate of inflation. That is what puts us on an unsustainable course. The President's budget goes against everything the experts said, against the debt commission he appointed, and refuses to confront these surging entitlement costs. That is a disappointment because we have nothing from the other side on how they would deal with them. But the Members on this side have offered budgets, and Congressman Ryan offered a budget.…”