Dale Bumpers: “there is a lot of talk now since the President has announced that the deficit this year for 1997 is, I believe, $22.6…”

“there is a lot of talk now since the President has announced that the deficit this year for 1997 is, I believe, $22.6 billion. That is an incredible figure. In 1993, you are looking at a Senator who was genuinely concerned, really concerned, not just concerned, alarmed about where we were heading with these massive deficits of $290 billion a year, and no one seeming to want to do something about it, either cut spending or raise taxes, both of which would be necessary to address the problem. I have said on the floor before, so far as I am concerned, regardless of what President Clinton does before or from now on, his legacy is going to be the bill in 1993 that addressed that problem in a very courageous way, so courageous it cost a lot of Members on my side of the aisle their seats. But it reduced the deficit from $290 billion a year, and it is reduced to this year $22.6 billion. That is an awesome, awesome result, and one in which the people in this country ought to take great pride.”