Political Quotes

“I hear the gentleman, and the gentleman says spending is the problem. If spending is the problem and spending obviously is one of the challenges we confront, as is revenues, if that is the case, then let me remind the gentleman that during the time that his party was totally in charge of spending, spending increased very substantially, otherwise known as an 86 percent increase from 2001 to 2008 in the national debt, an 86 percent increase. Under Ronald Reagan, it increased 189 percent. Under this President, it has increased 41 percent, and he confronted the deepest recession as a result of the economic policies in part pursued in the last administration, which I did not support and which my party did not support. I hear this about spending all the time. We had a pay-as-you-go bipartisan process put in place by the first George Bush and Democrats in 1990. In 1993, that pay-as-you-go was continued. In 1997, a deal between Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Clinton continued that pay-as-you-go process. And for the last 4 years in a row of the Clinton administration, we didn't borrow a single additional nickel to raise the debt limit. We didn't have to. Why? Because we were paying for what we bought. Republicans were in charge of the House and the Senate for part of that time, so they deserve some of the responsibility for that. The President was in charge of signing bills and making sure that we made investments. He made sure we did that, and the economy exploded.…”