Political Quotes

“about 3 weeks ago, with a lot of press fanfare, we received the President's budget. As a member of the Senate Budget Committee I was very interested in getting the details of this budget that was going to reduce the deficit and change priorities. Well, I have been startled by many of the things that I found. In fact, I found that it is pretty much the same thing that we have seen year after year in this administration and previous administrations. What that is is an increasing deficit that adds to the debt every year. There is no balanced budget in sight any year as far as the eye can see or any economist could possibly dream. Let me give you some startling statistics. The Federal debt at the end of fiscal year 1993 was $4.35 trillion. The projected Federal debt at the end of 1997 will be $5.65 trillion. The projected rate of growth in the national debt for the next 6 years--fiscal year 1994 to 1999-- will be $1.9 trillion. The deficit may not go up as much this year as it did last year, but the deficit continues to go up every year. The debt continues to grow every year. So over these next 5 years, we will see an increase of about $1.9 trillion on the debt. Obviously, enough has not been done. The net interest payments will be $343 billion by the year 2004. So, Mr. President, we have a lot of work to do.”