Political Quotes

“I want to talk about the rising sea of debt, and we have to be careful that we do not drown. A few years of surpluses between 1998 and 2001, which were not really surpluses except by Washington standards, seems to have given us a false sense of security. Since then the situation has deteriorated very rapidly, with huge increases in spending; and now we face the most serious debt and overspending crisis in American history. The value of the dollar is going down because of the increasing debt and the tax obligation that our kids and our grandkids are going to pay is going up because of increased debt. President Andrew Jackson paid off the Federal debt in 1835, retiring the last of the Revolutionary War bonds; however, the United States returned to borrowing which has now grown to levels that President Jackson could hardly imagine. Starting at zero in 1835, it took more than a century for the debt to reach $100 billion in 1943; $100 billion in 1943. After 200 years of American history, the debt reached $500 billion in 1976. Now we are projected to borrow more than $500 billion every year, this year, next year, the year after. The debt stands at $6.5 trillion today and will reach $10 trillion at current borrowing rates before the end of the decade.”