Political Quotes

“Mr. President, yesterday the Senate debated a bill to increase taxes on the production of oil and gas in the United States, as well as the tens of thousands of Americans that industry employs and really the millions of Americans it serves. We should have been debating a budget. In fact, the Senate has not passed a budget for 749 days. The majority decided to bring their bill to the floor yesterday in an effort, I think, to change some of the conversation from the problem at hand, which is our spending problem in Washington. Today we borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend. Spending on domestic government agencies domestic nondefense government agencies in the past 2 years increased 24 percent. That does not count the $700 billion, almost $800 billion stimulus package. It was much more than that added to it. The Medicare trust fund will go bankrupt in 2024. The Social Security trust fund will be insolvent in 2036. In the past decade, our Nation's debt has increased from $5 trillion to $14 trillion. Despite the gravity of our situation, the majority has chosen to debate a bill to increase taxes on oil and gas, an industry that employs 170,000 Americans and a number in my State and added this past year 11,000 new jobs. Mr. President, $1.9 trillion in taxes has been generated by the industry since 1981. The Reid-Menendez bill would not have decreased prices at the pump but would have shipped more jobs overseas and resulted in the importation of more oil and gas.…”