DENNIS A. CARDOZA: “Madam Speaker, the Democratic philosophy is simple: We believe in pay-as-you-go. In other words, we believe that you…”

“Madam Speaker, the Democratic philosophy is simple: We believe in pay-as-you-go. In other words, we believe that you should live within your financial means. Every family that makes these choices around the kitchen table every month in order to live within its budget understands that simple fact of life. The Federal Government used to understand this, too. In fact, the Clinton administration and the Democratic Congress worked with Republicans on a bipartisan basis and turned decades of exploding budget deficits into 4 straight years of budget surpluses through the use of pay-as-you-go or PAYGO rules in this House. The use of PAYGO through the 1990s and early 2000s helped lead us to the first Federal budget surpluses in over 30 years at that time, and we saw record economic growth during that period which resulted in the addition of 22 million American jobs.”