Political Quotes

“If there is a single line item in the Federal budget that is 100 percent waste, fraud, and abuse, it is interest on the national debt. Our Government's interest payments on its debt, like personal interest payments on credit card debt, do not buy a single useful item. Just think of all the dollars that are coming into Washington that are just paying off the debt, or not paying off the debt but paying interest on the debt. I wish we were paying off the debt. In 1995 we will spend about $218 billion on interest payments. In the future--and this is assuming there is no change in interest rates, and we all know that interest rates are now going up slightly. Just think what happens to these numbers if interest rates go up at all. But in the year 2000, interest on the debt is projected to total $278 billion per year, and by the year 2003, we will start seeing the graph accelerate. $328 billion, think about that, $328 billion in interest payments that do not buy us anything. They do not buy us another mile of highway, they do not buy any small child a breakfast program or a hot lunch program, they do not help send anybody to college. It does not put one more police officer on the street.”