Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for his comments. As I indicated earlier, this is an issue that has to have a bipartisan solution. It simply is not possible to pass constitutional amendments that require two-thirds of the House, or 290 Members, and two-thirds of the Senate, 67 Members, without Members reaching across the aisle and working together to come up with language that is agreeable and can be supported on both sides of the aisle. And quite frankly, the nature of the problem that we are confronted with is one that past Congresses controlled by both parties, Presidents of both parties have contributed to, and the solution is going to have to require also that same kind of bipartisan working it out on a year- to-year basis balancing the budget. It won't be easy. There will be tremendous differences of opinion about whether we should do this by cutting spending or raising revenues, or doing other things that can grow our economy and cause more revenues to come in. But it cannot get to the first stage of having future Congresses live by this without it being bipartisan. That's why I'm so pleased that so many members of the Democratic Party have signed on to support this effort. They've been led by an outstanding Member who has championed a balanced budget amendment for a long time, and that's Congressman Peter DeFazio from Oregon. I yield to the gentleman. Mr. DeFAZIO.…”