Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan adviser, who recently testified before the Ways and Means Committee, commented about the Republicans' balanced budget amendment. He stated: ``The proposal that Republican leaders plan to bring up is, frankly, nuts. The truth is that Republicans don't care one whit about actually balancing the budget. They prefer to delude voters with the pie-in-the- sky promises that amending the Constitution will painlessly solve our budget problems.'' Mr. Speaker, the mystical date here is January 19, 2001. Bill Clinton says goodbye and leaves a surplus not subject, by the way, to opinion today but subject to fact of $5.7 trillion. So the decision is made to cut taxes in 2001 by a trillion dollars. The decision is made in 2003 to cut taxes by $1.3 trillion, and then subsequently to engage in a war in Iraq based upon the faulty premise of weapons of mass destruction. Now, our Republican friends often come to the microphone and say things like, well, we all spent too much money. No, I didn't spend too much money. I voted against the war in Iraq. I voted against the Bush tax cuts. I voted against their prescription benefit proposal. Our friend from New Jersey a moment ago said the math is clear. But for Republicans, why is the math only clear when Bill Clinton is President and Barack Obama is President? They ran these deficits through the roof. There is no escaping that conclusion.…”