Political Quotes

“I wish to step back a bit and look at my personal experience in Congress as an example of what it is we are really looking at, what the perspective is with regard to this debate. I ran for Congress in 1993. At that time, we had massive deficits, in the neighborhood of $200 billion, $300 billion, $400 billion, $500 billion, and had been having those deficits for years. I ran on a balanced budget platform. I argued for a lot of other issues, but one of the main issues I talked about was the need to balance our Federal budget. I got elected, got here to Washington, and have been involved in a debate over a budget each year since I served in Congress. Now I am in my 11th year. In each year, what happens is, whoever is the leadership in Congress proposes a budget. The budget can be a 5-year budget, which is what we used to have, or a 10-year budget, such as the one before us. The important point to note about all these budgets is the year that counts, particularly with regard to spending, is the first year of the budget.”