Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first of all, I thank the chairman of the Finance Committee for his efforts in this endeavor. I am disappointed there was an unwillingness to at least have a vote on this important issue. I have been a very lucky individual. I have had the opportunity to have a career in business, and I have had a career as a Governor. In each of those cases, I had to learn business practices and accounting practices. Business accounting practices are different than government accounting practices. State accounting practices are somewhat different as well. But I have to tell you, what takes the cake is what passes for rational accounting and scoring practices in the Federal Government and how we maintain these fictions about what are costs, what are expenses in a way where the vast majority of Americans do not have the slightest idea what we are talking about: SGR, OCO, terms we throw around in this body that have no relationship to the bottom line but prevent us from taking action to at least start the process of getting our balance sheet right, a balance sheet that right now is $17 trillion in debt, that goes up 4 billion a night. The chairman of the Finance Committee outlined very well how this process came to be, the sustainable growth rate, where Congress 17 years ago said they saw at that point that the cost of Medicare would rise and the cost of our entitlement programs was rising.…”