Political Quotes

“I would be happy to address that question from my senior Senator and good friend, Mr. Warner. As he indicated-- and I think I can maybe say it a little bit more strongly than he could because he would be a little bit modest. I know of many people in this body who have great experience in governance, great experience in the business sector. I do not know of anyone who has worked harder on issues of fiscal responsibility and who has a greater track record in the business world of understanding what true fiscal responsibility is than my colleague Senator Warner, and I am glad to engage in this colloquy with him. I also want to thank our chairwoman, Senator Murray, for a job well done in helping shepherd this budget through committee to the floor. This debate, both in committee and here on the floor, that will take place in the next few days will illuminate important choices we need to make as a nation and will illuminate important differences between the Senate's approach and the House's approach. I echo comments Senator Warner made. This Senate budget is a compromise, like all are, and there will be more compromise that should take place in any normal process. But the budget does a very good job in a number of ways. It tackles the task, the challenging task of deficit reduction to get us to figures that would be very much the equivalent of what had been recommended in the Simpson-Bowles report, as Senator Warner indicated.…”