John Chandler: “I thank Mr. Ross for yielding to me. I appreciate my fellow Blue Dog from Arkansas putting this very important time…”

“I thank Mr. Ross for yielding to me. I appreciate my fellow Blue Dog from Arkansas putting this very important time together for us to talk to the country about what we all believe is a very important matter. Mr. Ross's grandparents, I am sure, just the same as my grandparents, grew up in the Great Depression. And I am sure that they had experiences very similar to mine, and those experiences instilled in them a great sense of fiscal responsibility. My grandfather, in fact, always used to tell me, and I cannot even count the times that he told me, ``If you spent more than you took in, you would go broke.'' Wise words. Too bad that the leadership of the Republican-controlled Congress seems to have forgotten this most basic rule of fiscal management. By all accounts, the mentality of our grandparents and their generation has been lost. As the gentleman said, later this week, maybe as early as tomorrow, the House will consider the first of two bills the Republican leadership will bring to the floor under the auspices of reducing the deficit. The only problem is that this so-called deficit reduction package actually adds billions to the deficit, hastening a fiscal crisis brought on by the systematic mismanagement of our country's finances. Our deficit has now passed $8 trillion, and we see right there on that sign that the gentleman has got next to him, that poster, the number 8 trillion. I am surprised we can even breathe a number that big, all those zeros.…”