Political Quotes

“how nice it would be if we could come up with a magic bullet to all of a sudden fix our fiscal crisis, but it is not that easy. It certainly is not going to be fixed by radical proposals like this. I say radical because this would cut spending in domestic discretionary programs, including defense. In fact, defense would be cut by $1.1 trillion, it is estimated, over the next decade. We could go down a long list of programs that would be deeply cut, but really what is at stake here is a fundamental philosophy. The proposal as most of the other proposals, in fact, I think all of the amendments and substitutes tonight, would exempt tax cuts. We exempt tax cuts because we do not want to hurt the most affluent people in this country. The richer you are, the more benefit you get from tax cuts. But the poorer you are, the more dependent you are upon entitlement programs, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, child nutrition, foster care, disability payments, veterans' benefits. Those go to people who need help, to enable us to have a civil society in this country, not a survival of the fittest. Some people are not born into wealth. Some people have disabilities. Some people suffer all their lives through the accident of birth. Yet what we would do with these proposals to try to balance the budget is to afford the tax cuts by taking the money away from the people who need it the most.”