Political Quotes

“Mr. President, let me echo the comments of my good friend, the Senator from Georgia, Senator Chambliss. It is time for us in this Senate--and excuse the language--to put up or shut up. A lot of folks talk about deficit reduction in both parties time and again, but over the next year, there is a growing group of us--and I think folks will see this group in the next 45 minutes, hopefully briefly, each one of us--starting to raise the issue that next year we have to take on deficit reduction and major tax reform. The country is approaching $14 trillion in national debt. It has been estimated that every day we delay, we add close to $5 billion to that national debt. So whether your issue is the solvency of Social Security, whether your issue is tax rates, whether your issue is making sure we pass on a balance sheet to our kids and our grandkids and allow America to continue to be the economic superpower it has been, unless we take on this issue, we won't be able to accomplish those goals. While I believe, as imperfect as this compromise between the President and others is in terms of short-term stimulus that we will vote on later tonight, we also have to demonstrate that this body can actually walk and chew gum, that we can do short-term stimulus now, but next year engage in meaningful tax reform and deficit reduction. Because if we act later tonight, we will be adding $900 billion over the next 2 years to our national deficit.…”