Jim Nussle: “I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes just to show my colleague from Mississippi, who does care about this; I do not begrudge…”

“I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes just to show my colleague from Mississippi, who does care about this; I do not begrudge him that at all. I just want to let him know that I also share in the concern over debt. But since he was slightly partisan about the issue, let me show my colleagues my chart that shows the difference between what the Democratic Congresses did versus the Republican Congresses. We were the ones who paid down the national debt by almost half a trillion dollars until we hit this last crisis in 2001 involving the economy, involving the emergency spending, involving what happened with homeland security. Mr. Chairman, if my colleagues want to raise it to a partisan level of whose debt is whose, I can show my colleagues a chart that compares with the gentleman's partisan chart. What I would rather do is say, look, we are in this together now. I can show a chart that goes back to Reagan. I can show a chart that goes back to Clinton. We can have a history lesson here all day long. We can yell and scream and point fingers at who did what. Look, we are in a mess. My colleagues did not do it; I did not do it. I mean, there are three huge factors. We had emergency spending that no one, no one would have ever anticipated. What a huge economic sucker gut punch as a result of a recession that was made worse after 2001 and the terrorist attacks. Was there a component part of that of reducing taxes? Yes. We disagree.…”