Political Quotes

“I just left a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee, and I thought it was ironic that we are now in a debate over the disposition of America's surplus. I am sure the President will recall that 2 years ago, almost to the day, we were here on the floor of the U.S. Senate where the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, brought out virtually every budget report from the last 30 years that he believed to be in deficit, in red ink, and stacked them up. They were higher than the height of the Senator from Utah, and he is a tall man, making the point that we had been embroiled in deficit spending for so long we had no recourse, nothing we could do, other than to amend the Constitution of the United States and to give the Federal courts the authority to force Congress to stop spending, to stop deficits, with the so-called balanced budget amendment. That amendment lost by 1 vote 2 years ago. It was the hottest item on the Senate calendar 2 years ago. Today, we are deeply embroiled in a debate in the Senate Budget Committee on how to spend the surplus. We have turned the corner as a nation, and the President has come forward and said, ``I think we should take this surplus and use it in a sensible way for the future of America.'' I hope we engage in debate here in the 106th Congress, House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, in a way to do that responsibly.”