Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) for leading on this Special Order tonight and for leading on fiscal responsibility here in the United States Congress. This balanced budget amendment is something that I am proud to be an original cosponsor of. I have done so every time that this has been offered since I have been here in Congress. And the dialogue that is here tonight adds so much to something that has been missing completely, I think, from the administration and from the White House. We went from a point of Republicans pushing towards a balanced budget and listening to the PAYGO arguments of the Blue Dog Democrats demagoging on the issue. I don't know where they are today. It seems to me that they have gone underground. Maybe they are the Ground Hogs rather than the Blue Dogs at this point. I don't hear anything from them about balancing the budget any more, because they understand that in order to fund this kind of profligate spending that we have, this $1.4-plus trillion deficit created by this Obama budget, that, by their method, we would have to raise taxes dramatically. What I wanted to do is keep the taxes low, slow the growth in government; and for years I said, slow the growth in government so that the economy can catch up. I am now to this point where I would say the other way is that I don't believe the economy can catch up with the spending that we have. I think we actually have to shrink government in order to get it back in line.…”