Political Quotes

“Once you have ascertained that even the Republican Study Group budget would require three-fifths, any budget, responsible or irresponsible, could pass with the same three-fifths. In fact, you could cut taxes with three-fifths. You could raise spending. You could have a totally irresponsible budget with three-fifths. So why is it more likely that you're going to be fiscally responsible with three-fifths when you've never been able to get even a simple majority, when three-fifths--last December we passed an $800 billion tax cut, putting us $800 billion further in the ditch. We got three-fifths for that, but try to get three-fifths for a meaningful deficit reduction plan. This legislation will make it more difficult to balance the budget. All of this debate has been about the title, how nice it would be to balance the budget. But we ought to read the bill and point out that the provisions of this bill will actually make it more difficult, probably impossible, to ever balance the budget, and we will end up trying to get three-fifths vote, ending up with worse budgets than we would have under the present system.”