On the recordJanuary 23, 2013
I couldn't help but listen to the words of my friend from Alabama regarding the debt and deficit, and then to be reminded that we did balance the budget not too long ago. In fact, in 1993, we passed a tax bill here in the Senate and in the House--it was signed into law by President Clinton--which set us on a course to reduce the deficit. In fact, by the years 1999 and 2000, we balanced the budget. We had a surplus. Can you imagine that? We had a surplus for 3 years in a row. The Congressional Budget Office and OMB said that if we had continued on that pathway, we would have fully paid off the national debt by 2010. When I hear my friends on the Republican side talk about reducing the deficit and the debt, we did that. When the Democrats were in charge of the Senate and the House and we had the Presidency, I would also point out that not one Republican on that side of the aisle voted for that bill in 1993. I can remember standing here and debating with my friend from Texas at that time on this bill, and there were all kinds of dire warnings that if this bill passed, we were going to have depressions and recessions; the business community would stop, and it would be the worst thing that ever happened to this country if we passed the Clinton tax proposal. Well, we passed it, but without one Republican vote. And what happened? We had the largest spurt of economic growth this country had seen almost since the 1950s and 1960s.…
