Ron Lewis: “I came here in 1994 when the Democrats had the majority. They had just passed in 1993 the highest tax increase in the…”

“I came here in 1994 when the Democrats had the majority. They had just passed in 1993 the highest tax increase in the history of this country, planning on balancing the budget. But when I got here, they were running a $200 billion deficit, and those deficits were going to be there as far as the eye could see. In 1995, we took the majority, the Republicans; and we said we were going to balance the budget. We were going to cut taxes; and after debating that issue in 1997, we finally got enough votes in the House, got some bipartisan support, and we got the President to sign it into law, President Clinton. That budget was not supposed to balance for 5 years. Actually, it was not supposed to balance until this year. That was the plan. Do my colleagues know it balanced in a year. Why did it balance in a year? Why was that such a surprise? How did that happen? I will tell my colleagues why it happened. It was because we cut capital gains taxes. That is why. It infused billions of dollars into the economy. Now we want to cut them just a little bit more to stimulate the economy once again.”