The final word

"I take every opportunity for wiggling. If I don't have room, I can't wiggle."

- Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, talking to reporters after a senate budget committee hearing. Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici had called on her to raise Medicare payments to nursing homes and home health-care providers, some of which are going out of business; Shalala said she has no "wiggle room" to do so because Congress was so "prescriptive" in writing the law.

Source: National Journal's Congressdaily