Sara Jacobs: “I ask my friends and colleagues to recognize something that has occurred tonight in this debate, and that is a betrayal…”

“I ask my friends and colleagues to recognize something that has occurred tonight in this debate, and that is a betrayal of an inclination to suggest that there is no connection between taxes and spending. It is said that if taxes are curtailed, spending will be curtailed. In my nearly 30 years in Congress, I have not found that to be the case. In 1976 I began the movement for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. By the way, mine was called the Payment Book Amendment. After the balance was achieved, then 5 percent of the national debt, which then was $750 billion, had to be retired each year by a surplus equal to the 5 percent. I do not mean to pick out any particular President, but as a good example, almost never has the Congress appropriated as much money as a President requests. President Reagan's budgets increased spending in his first 4 years in office by $1 trillion and cut taxes in 1981 by $750 billion, restoring some of that the following year by a reguessive tax increase.”