Political Quotes

“I have supported the balanced budget constitutional amendment ever since it was first introduced in 1979. I will continue to support it because it is the correct policy for our Nation. While budget deficits may be convenient in the short term, they are fatal if they are allowed to become the usual practice over the long term. The General Accounting Office has estimated that if we achieve a balanced budget by 2001 and adhere to it thereafter, real per capita income will be 36 percent higher in the year 2020 compared to the no-action alternative. Throughout most of our Nation's history, a balanced budget has been an unwritten constitutional norm. By the 1830's, the Revolutionary War debt, which the new Nation had assumed, had been paid off entirely. After the Civil War, a total of 28 consecutive budget surpluses helped bring about a gradual reduction in the Civil War debt. Despite occasional unpredicted deficits in hard times, the Civil War debt had been trimmed from $3 to $1.2 billion by 1916. In the 1920s, the Nation started repaying the debt from World War I until the Great Depression and the Second World War intervened. In the years following World War II, the Federal budget was sometimes in surplus and sometimes in deficit.”