Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would say to the previous speaker, my friend Mr. Pence, we did that. In 1993 we looked the fiscal posture of our country in the eye. We had sustained $1.4 trillion of deficit spending under Mr. Reagan and $1.1 trillion of deficit spending under Mr. Bush, and we put legislation on this floor and said we need to meet our fiscal responsibilities. Not a single member, unfortunately, of the Republican Party voted for that legislation. But over the next 8 years, we had a net surplus in this country; the only time in the lifetime of anybody in this body that that has happened. We did it working together. Unfortunately, the last administration ran up $3.8 trillion of deficit, and we inherited an economy that was in substantial free fall. The President said that; Mr. Bernanke said that; Mr. Paulson said that. And so we adopted legislation that tried to stabilize that economy, and the good news is that we have. We haven't gotten to where we want to be. We want to create more jobs. As the President says, we want to invest in growing our economy and bringing jobs back. There will be some very tough decisions we will have to make moving forward; and, frankly, as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee knows and as the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee knows, you will not get there focused simply on 14 percent of the budget. It will not happen, my friends.…”