Political Quotes

“we are going to increase the debt limit of the United States in the next several days. Already, the debt limit of the United States, set at $5.95 trillion, is being apparently violated by having a debt greater than the debt limit set by the United States. I think we need a thorough discussion in this Chamber and in the Senate and certainly in the White House of how do we want to treat debt in the United States; how deep do we want to go in debt; how much, if you will, mortgage do we want to leave to our children and our grandchildren. It seems that it is reasonable to live within our means, not to say that our spending today is so important that it justifies leaving a larger debt or a larger mortgage to our kids and our grandkids. If we want to spend money, then it is reasonable to say to the American people and be up-front with them that we are going to increase taxes and use those revenues for existing spending rather than, I suggest, hoodwinking the American people by increasing our borrowing. The borrowing is not as obvious as tax increases. Therefore, over the last 30 years, we have said we are going to borrow more and more as government gets larger and larger and, sadly, a lot of that borrowing has come from the trust funds.…”