Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Van Hollen. What's striking about the debate that we're having today and this discussion is that essentially our Republican friends and colleagues are asking us to go back to the policies that got us here in the first place, the folly of those 6 years when they controlled the Presidency, when they controlled the Senate, and when they controlled the House of Representatives. So let me reacquaint all with their number forecast. They offered $1.3 trillion worth of tax cuts in 2001, and then came back in 2003 and said that wasn't enough; let's cut taxes by another trillion dollars. The underlying argument that they offered at the time was that this would jump-start growth, despite the fact that as we came off the Clinton years with the greatest spurt of economic growth in the history of the world--a budget that was balanced for 4 successive years and 22 million jobs--their argument was: We can outdo that growth if we simply cut taxes by $2.3 trillion--and, incidentally, not for the middle class. These tax cuts overwhelmingly went to people in the 1 percentile. Remember the theory that tax cuts pay for themselves? So, let's contrast January 19, 2001 with the end of the Bush years-- $15 trillion worth of debt, deficits as far as the eye could see, all under the guise of economic growth. So, let me give you a number--not an opinion, but a fact. Those 8 years offered the most anemic economic growth at any time since Herbert Hoover was President of the United States.…”