Political Quotes

“I have to say it: The emperor has no clothes. Somebody has to say it. I am referring to this additional bailout, a spending bill that spends everything we have on nothing we are sure about. I have watched with dismay and disgust as this stimulus ballooned from $800 billion to more than $930 billion in only 4 days of debate. Today my colleagues tell me I am supposed to be giddy that we are only spending $827 billion. Frankly, I have had enough of this bailout baloney. Members from both sides of the aisle are taking advantage of taxpayer shell shock and a strident sense of national urgency to pump the recovery package with wasteful spending and unending tax provisions that blatantly fail a crucial yet simple test set by my Democratic colleagues--that the provisions of the stimulus bill would be targeted, timely, and, most important, temporary. For example, this bill includes billions of new money for Federal agencies. Presumably these agencies will hire new workers. What happens at the end of the fiscal year when the funding for these new hires goes away? Will these new jobs be eliminated? Of course not. We never do. Lawmakers simply come back to the well in a few months and exert even more pressure to maintain the new programs and keep these new jobs and keep the bloated spending that supports them. There is nothing temporary about that kind of spending. There is also nothing temporary about much of the programmatic spending included in this bill either.”