Political Quotes

“I rise to speak on the proposed debt crisis agreement. The first thing I would like to do is express my appreciation--I think I would actually say empathy to the President, the Vice President, and the bipartisan leadership of both Houses of Congress who have had to deal with this enormously significant and difficult problem for our Federal Government because the obvious fact is we have worked our way into a very deep hole of debt. When I say ``we,'' I mean we, all of us--succeeding Presidents of different parties, Members of both parties in both Houses of Congress. There is a tendency, when you have a problem such as this, to want to point and blame everybody else. The truth is, we are all responsible, and we are only going to get out of this hole and get the American government and the American people out of this hole if we work together to solve the problems, just as we have together caused these problems. I saw some numbers recently--I think I have them right; I know I have them almost right--that express very simply what happened over the last decade. In fiscal year 2001, the last year of the Clinton administration, the Federal Government tax revenues--revenues--were at about 19.6 percent of the gross domestic product. Federal Government spending in that year was about a point lower, 18.5 or 18.6 percent of the gross domestic product. So you are raising about 1 percent more of the GDP than you are spending, and you have a surplus. What is it now?…”