Jim Nussle: “reclaiming my time, and to correct the record, I would just get the Congressional Record out and show all of the votes…”

“reclaiming my time, and to correct the record, I would just get the Congressional Record out and show all of the votes and show the bipartisan support for a number of spending bills over the last 10 years, huge bipartisan support for all 13 appropriations bills, for the emergency supplementals, for the war with Iraq, to support our troops, which press release after press release after press release goes out claiming credit for the spending on the other side. My guess is even the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) probably has put out one or two of those press releases, as most Members do. Having said that, this is not the same as a family budget during periods of relative calm where dad and mom are working and there is no particular problem within the family. What we have here is a situation where the roof collapsed and where dad lost his job, and what you are telling that family is they cannot go borrow money? Everybody knows in an emergency situation like that, when a family faces that kind of financial difficulty, one of their options has to be to be able to go borrow money. Let us review the bidding here. We had a balanced budget on September 10, 2001. Remember those good old days. We had a balanced budget. Everybody took credit for it. Trust me, it was not just the Republican side of the aisle that took credit for it. I remember all sorts of credit that was being taken. But what did that balanced budget get us? Did it protect our country that day?”