Political Quotes

“I am a farmer from Michigan and seems to me we need to get the budget hay out of the mow and down on that barn floor where we can chew on it a little bit. This graph represents what has been happening to spending in this country. There has been a lot of complaints from liberals that would like to spend more, have government bigger and solve more problems in Washington. Of course that would mean increase taxes or increase borrowing. This chart shows that, in 1994, we were spending about $1.4 trillion. By 2003, the last year of this new 5-year budget, we are going to be spending $1.9 trillion, over a 30 percent increase in spending. Spending even on this budget increases almost twice as fast as inflation. In the final year of this budget, in the fifth year, 2003, we are spending about $1.9 trillion. If we followed the President's and the Democrats' recommendations, we would be spending $67 billion more in that 1 year alone. The question before us is do we want bigger government or more efficient government? Do we want more taxes or fewer taxes? Do we want to continue borrowing or pay down debt? What has brought about economic vitality is the fact that government is borrowing less money. Now, through these years shown on this chart, we are also going to experience the largest surplus in our history. In some of these years tax revenues are increasing four times the inflation rate.”