Political Quotes

“I appreciate the words of my colleague from Georgia. He was the president of this freshman class that the American people elected in 2010, about 99 new Members, mostly Republicans, but Democrats as well. It was one of the largest freshman classes we've had in history. I remember when the President spoke those words that my colleague from Georgia just quoted, when he said by the end of his first term he was going to cut the deficit in half. I remember chuckling just a little bit and thinking what a low bar to set, having run such a huge campaign as he ran in 2007 and 2008, just to cut the deficit in half. I thought we could do better. I didn't realize at the time, of course, that we were going to begin, during the Obama administration, running the highest budget deficits in American history. Formerly, the Bush deficits had been the highest deficits in American history. Of course, President Obama took those deficits not just to that level, not to just twice that level, not to just three times that level, but almost four times the level of what were formerly the highest deficits in American history. This campaign, Mr. Speaker, he spent the entire campaign campaigning on raising taxes on the 1 percent. He said he had a mandate to do that because he talked about that for 2 years and folks elected him President, and they did. Candidly, Mr. Speaker, that's not a new idea.…”