Political Quotes

“I thank my friend, Madam Speaker, for yielding, and it is a great privilege to join my Blue Dog colleagues here on the House floor to talk about these issues that are of such great import to the American people and to the children of America today, because they are the ones who will be, in the end, mostly affected by these policies that we are having great debates about today. Now, my fellow Blue Dog colleagues have spoken very eloquently and succinctly about PAYGO, what it is, how it got started, how it works, and the importance of it. Just in brief summary, I will remind our viewers that PAYGO was a principle that was first put in place in 1990 by then-President George H.W. Bush, commonly referred to around these parts of the country as Bush 41. With a Democratic Congress and Republican administration, they began to realize the misguided policy of deficits, large annual deficits, so they did something about it. After the election in 1992, when President Clinton became President, and then in 1994, the Republican revolution where you had a Democratic President and Republican-led Congress, in 1997, those principles of PAYGO were continued in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. In 1999, we saw for the first time in 30 years a balanced budget. And we could see surpluses, Madam Speaker, as far as the eye could see. It looked great for America at that point in time. We had money to deal with national security.”