I had gone back, actually, and I had mentioned 1975 and Senator Muskie's appointment as chairman of the Senate Committee on the Budget, and that was the year the House Committee on the Budget was established and the Congressional Budget Office was established, because 20 years ago we viewed the debt and spending as a serious problem, and we created special committees to deal with it. Yet, 20 years later, we are still struggling with the same issue.
Discussing the historical context of budgetary issues in Congress.
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What has been amazing to me is, as I mentioned, from 1980 forward, there have been 16 major pieces of legislation. Most of this legislation passed on a strong bipartisan basis. I do not say this to be critical.
This comes back to the point the gentleman from Connecticut made so well several minutes ago, that the easiest thing in the world any of us can do is say, well, we are going to create a program. Sure, we will give you more money, even…
We cannot even go, to go just one step beyond what you are saying, most people cannot even afford the tax burden now, even though we are not even paying for the entire Government. That is the difficulty we are trying to confront.
Just to pick up on one example, I think if someone asked me what has bothered me the most perhaps since I came to Washington, I have to say the lack of honesty, the lack of directness, being candid about the difficult issues that we are…
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