Longtime GOP Senator Alan Simpson dispensed some of his plainspoken wisdom to a crowd of University of Kentucky students Wednesday.
And it didn’t take long for the chair of President Obama’s Simpson-Bowles Commission on Fiscal Responsibility to set the tone for his talk at Worsham Theater.
"Eventually in these few minutes, I will have irritated every single person in this room," he warned, adding a wicked chuckle.
Known for his candid, shoot-from-the-hip style, Simpson spent most of his time on stage laying sobering statistics about U.S. debt levels on the audience of mostly students. Asked about the prospects for the new GOP-led Congress, the moderate Republican urged lawmakers to quit the finger-pointing and get down to business.
"This issue is... Forget what the hell happened, it's what do we do now. And now we have to govern and they'll be watching us like a hawk and the eagle eye will be on your senior Senator," Simpson said.
During his 18-year tenure in the Senate from 1979 to 1997, Simpson worked closely with Democratic Senator and Kentucky Governor Wendell Ford.
