Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, one of the great urgencies that we have in this country is to get our fiscal house in order. We're paying more than $600 million a day in interest on our debt. Our debt has now accumulated to something like $14 trillion; and when we have an opportunity, really an obligation to point out redundancies within our government, we have to take that obligation and act upon it. The United States Institute of Peace is clearly one of those opportunities where we cite redundancy and we say we don't need somebody competing, in essence, with the State Department. Yes, they do great work in many different areas. They have been able to raise literally millions and millions of dollars from grants but, also, more importantly, from the outside world; and this is an opportunity for us to actually scale this back and allow that transition to happen. Now, some will say, well, it is just another $40 million; that's not going to make a big enough dent in the debt. The reality is, we have to start small. We have to see small things add up over the course of time. These appropriations that have happened year after year after year really on autopilot have now cost the taxpayers in excess of $700 million. We're about to approach $1 billion, right in the shadows of the State Department.…”