Political Quotes

“59 years ago tomorrow--in other words, Friday--Ronald Reagan delivered his iconic ``A Time for Choosing'' speech. In this speech, the future President laid out, in very stark terms, the challenges that Americans faced as a nation, all due to a bloated Federal Government that threatened America's prosperity and individual freedoms. Well, America is once again at a time for choosing, and much like in Reagan's time, the issues confronting us cross party lines. This would be a good time for me to say that we have a partial step in this direction because of the Biden-McCarthy agreement in June not to shut down the government because the government couldn't issue debt. So here we are again. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and others have warned policymakers for decades that, absent changes, the retirement of the baby boom generation would result in an explosion of debt and deficit. Yet we in the Congress have turned a blind eye as the country walked headlong towards a fiscal cliff. For 40 years, our public debt averaged around 35 percent of our economy. But over the past 15 years, that debt has grown by leaps and bounds. First came the 2008 financial crisis, which led to a $6 trillion leap in public debt in just 4 years after 2008. This amounted to a doubling of the national debt as a share of the economy, rising from 35 percent--where it was for about 40 years--to over 70 percent of GDP. Then, we all know what the pandemic has done to the public debt.…”