Political Quotes

“I rise today to talk about the tough situation my home State of Wyoming finds itself in and to urge my colleagues to take a page from Wyoming's book. Last week, Wyoming's Governor proposed cutting $248 million from the State budget because Wyoming has seen a reduction in revenue. To my friends from urban States, $248 million might not sound like a lot of money, but that amounts to 8 percent of Wyoming's budget. The downturn in energy development--particularly coal--reduced Wyoming's revenue last January, when the legislature met, and they had to make cuts. Then new figures came out after the legislature was over requiring the Governor to make cuts to meet the new level of revenue that there is, which is requiring him to make additional cuts of 8 percent. Around here, we don't make cuts; we reduce the amount of increase a program gets and we call that a cut. The Governor had a very clever way of prioritizing. He asked every agency to give him a list of the things they are doing and suggest where they would take a 1-percent cut, a 5-percent cut, and a 10- percent cut. Then all he had to do was compare the lists. If it wound up on all three lists, it wasn't that important. If it was only on the 1-percent list, maybe there was some value to that program. That is the chart Wyoming is using to make their 8 percent cuts.…”