Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Chair, one of the great companies in this Nation, and a big company in Vermont, is International Business Machines. This year they are about to celebrate their 100th anniversary. I was speaking to some folks from IBM in my office a few days ago, and they told me the story of what happened to them in 1992. The world was turning upside down in the tech industry. Companies that wanted to survive had to make big decisions. They had 400,000 employees, and there was some question as to whether they were going to make payroll. They had to make changes. They did two things. They looked at every single element of their operation. They looked at every single line item in their spending. In every single place they could make a cut, tough as it was, they did. They made cuts. But they also said where do we have to be in 10 years, and what do we have to do to get there? As nerve-wracking as it was for those folks at IBM, they made decisions to invest money in acquisitions, in research and development, to meet a plan that required investment, that required spending at a time when they were doing every single thing they could to save every single nickel. Now IBM is stronger than ever, and it's going to celebrate its 100th anniversary. This country has to make similar decisions. We have to cut. There is not an argument here.…”