Political Quotes

“Look, this is actually a just an amendment I have introduced on a number of these bills to make a point. I am not going to ask for a vote on it, but I do want us to conceptually think about something, and I have been trying to find forms to say it over and over and over. We borrow every dime we as Members of Congress vote on. Every dime of defense is now borrowed. Every dime of nondefense discretionary now is borrowed. Last fiscal year we had, what, 300 billion, maybe 400 billion of let's call it Medicare, but in mandatory, that was borrowed. In this piece of legislation 26.2 percent is our best calculation of the resources here--and many of them are really good programs, but we are borrowing it to send it to entities that do have their own taxing authority. It is an uncomfortable conversation, but I do want us to think about it as we get more and more of our financial stresses, as our borrowing costs now--we saw Treasury yesterday basically released an update saying gross interest this fiscal year will top a trillion dollars. Do you know what that means? Social Security is our number one spend; interest just became our number two spend; Medicare is our number three spend; and defense now is our number four spend. We are not going to balance the budget through discretionary, but somewhere here--I don't know how to get it into our lexicon and our culture that everything we now vote on as Members of Congress comes off of borrowed money. Mr.…”