Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, according to a new poll by The Washington Post and ABC News, 84 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job. I don't know that the other 16 percent are paying attention, because we're not doing our job well. And this certainly is not doing our job well. The reason it is not doing our job well is because it is a pretense, a sham. This legislation is to pay bills that we've already incurred. Whether, as the gentleman said, it was incurred with your votes or whether it was incurred with our votes, we have incurred those expenses. This is about whether America is going to pay its bills. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, the previous gentleman said nobody had done anything about the debt. In point of fact, we did do something about the debt. We put revenue at levels commensurate with our spending. As a result, in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 and 2001--in 1997 we brought the deficit down to $25 billion, and for the next 4 years, we had a surplus. Now a couple of those years were not real surpluses because we counted on Social Security revenue. But two of those years were real surpluses. This is about whether we pay our bills that we have incurred. Not doing this would be irresponsible, and would lead, I think, to further disrespect by the public, and properly so. One of the reasons for this feeling by the public is that Americans are tired of political games. This is a political game.…”