Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank my colleague Senator Warner. I do want to pick up on one of the last points he made, which is the balanced way of getting to where we all want to go. We want to have a growing economy with a lowering unemployment rate. We want to deal with our deficit. These are challenging, complex goals that are not easy, but we can get there. Even the action of this body last night in passing the fiscal year 2013 appropriations bill and fix shows we can cooperate together and with the House get there. It is my hope that will inspire us going forward. The question is this: All agree that what has been done thus far in the area of deficit reduction equates to about $2.4 trillion of deficit reduction that has been done by the last Congress, including the deal on the Bush tax cuts that were made at yearend, $2.4 trillion of deficit reduction over the next 10 years. And all in looking at that deficit reduction also agree that $1.85 trillion of the deficit reduction was cutting expenses and a little bit more than $600 billion of it was revenues that were achieved through the yearend Bush tax cuts deal. So overwhelmingly what has been done thus far has been in spending cuts rather than new revenues. It is very important for us to know that. It is very important for folks to realize that Democrats are willing to make hard calls about spending, and we have done it already.…”