Political Quotes

“I rise today to talk about the spending decisions that are crippling the long-term budget outlook and the futures of our children and grandchildren. I am one of two accountants serving in the Senate, so the purpose of the budget resolution makes a lot of sense to me. It is like an accounting ledger--a blueprint that lays out spending priorities for the country for the next fiscal year. Back in my accounting days, I made sure that the ledger balanced. I would look carefully line by line at what was being spent and where it was being spent. If the ledger didn't balance, I looked at what could be trimmed from the overall budget. To do that, I would sit down and prioritize what was needed to make the business work, and what could be cut with the least impact on the business or its customers. I would also look at where the business might be duplicating some of its efforts and what could be cut there. But that is not what we are doing in this exercise. We are not taking a serious look at spending and making the necessary and tough choices about what we can afford. We aren't even able to vote on spending items that both sides agree are duplicative or wasteful, as we saw during the weeklong exercise with the continuing resolution that passed yesterday.…”