Christopher Shays: “When I was elected in 1987, I had one big desire: to get our country's financial house in order and to balance the…”

“When I was elected in 1987, I had one big desire: to get our country's financial house in order and to balance the Federal budget. That was my desire. I did not feel I really had an opportunity to really have an impact on that until John Kasich came and started offering amendments to cut spending in 1989, and more and more of us started to join with him. Then in 1994 a major change happened: Republicans had an opportunity to lead this House and to try to get our country's financial house in order. We did that by 1997, and in 1998 we ended deficit spending. In 1999 we ended using Social Security reserves. That happened. That is a fact. It was a bipartisan effort. There are times I voted to increase the national debt, and there are times I voted not to. But when I hear a colleague who has pushed the farm bill so hard talk to us about not increasing the deficit, I think, did that not contribute to increasing the national debt? Is that not a part of spending?”