Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in listening to the presentation of my friend from Mississippi, I am reminded of the words of Harry Truman when he said something to the effect: The only thing new in the world is the history we forgot or never learned. I want to go back in history. I want to go back about 15 years. We had gone from 1968 to 1997 and never balanced a budget. All those years--almost 30 years. Then President Clinton said to Erskine Bowles, his Chief of Staff, figure out a way to maybe negotiate a balanced budget deal with Republicans in the House and in the Senate and see what kind of deal you can get. So Erskine went out and negotiated and came up with a deal. It was the deficit reduction deal that lead to not one but three balanced budgets by the end of that decade. Interestingly enough, half of the debt reduction was on the spending side and half the debt reduction was on the revenue side. Now fast forward to 2001, a new President, a change in administration, and as far as the eye could see not just balanced budgets but plenty of black ink--surpluses as far as the eye could see. Eight years later, we had another change in administration, and a new President was handed over a $1 trillion deficit, the worst recession since the Great Depression, and we are still trying to dig our way out of that.…”