Tom Harkin: “I wish to take a few moments to talk about the budget and what we are confronting right now in the Congress. First of…”

“I wish to take a few moments to talk about the budget and what we are confronting right now in the Congress. First of all, we all agree--I think we should all agree--the deficits we have now are unsustainable. They are a drag on our economy, they jeopardize our future, and they have to be brought under control. I am committed to finding a bipartisan approach to try to get us through this and to attain this important goal of bringing the budget under control and balanced for the future. I might just say for the last three decades, I have been proud that my party, the Democratic Party, has been the party of fiscal discipline and balanced budgets. Well, that may come as a shock to some people, but let's review the history. When Bill Clinton became President in 1992, he inherited at that time the largest deficits in U.S. history. Well, he joined with Democrats in Congress to pass a balanced deficit reduction law that resulted in the largest surpluses in history and put us on a path, by the year 2000, to completely eliminate the national debt within a decade. I was here for that. Every single Republican voted against it, every single one.”