Political Quotes

“I rise today to discuss S. 947, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. I'm pleased that we've come together in a bipartisan way--both sides of the aisle, both sides of the Capitol, and both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue--to craft a plan that brings us a step closer to fiscal sanity. The good news, Mr. President, is that the bill before us realizes roughly $137 billion in savings over the next 5 years. And that's good news for our country and for our children and our grandchildren. S. 947 provides additional years of solvency to the Medicare hospital trust fund, reforms payment methodologies for skilled nursing facilities, home health, and outpatient entities, and includes greater choice--and expanded preventive benefits--for millions of Medicare beneficiaries. As a cosponsor of the original Chafee-Rockefeller child health bill, I'm delighted that this bill contains $16 billion to expand access to health care for America's children, most of whom live in the home of an American worker. Someday, our children will be grateful for the $16 billion we invested in their health care, Mr. President. And they will be grateful that we succeeded today in saving $137 billion in future debt--debt we will not ask them to pay. But our children will not be grateful if we don't take this opportunity in this budget to tackle long-term entitlement reform in a systemic way.”