Political Quotes

“I had hoped that this year, we could have a reasonable and orderly appropriations process, where we would make the tough decisions that are required to live within our means. I had hoped that we could prioritize our spending, increasing funding for defense to strengthen our nation's readiness, investing in school improvements, devoting needed funds to science and basic research, enhancing our transportation system, and reducing our seemingly inexhaustible demand for pork-barrel projects. Instead, we are now at the end of the appropriations process and we are facing the prospect of spending even more than we have taken in-- despite the fact that revenues exceeded estimates and an on-budget surplus was available to us. At this point we face a Hobson's choice. In order to fulfill a commitment to protect the Social Security surplus that both political parties made to the American people we have to vote for a process that is abhorrent to any concept of responsible budgeting and legislating. In order to fund unwanted and unneeded legislative pork we're taking money from every legitimate program we've already funded--including crucial defense spending and reducing class size. Rather than making the hard choices throughout the process, and foregoing popular parochial spending that is not critical to our nation's needs, we are forced to make an across-the-board cut in order to meet our commitment. This is not the responsible way to govern. In fact, it's indefensible.”