Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to talk about our debt crisis, our short-term debt crisis and our long-term debt crisis. I come here today to discuss ways to address them and ways not to address them. Our most immediate debt crisis is now upon us. In order to maintain the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government, Congress will have to vote to raise the debt ceiling within a matter of weeks. This is something Congress has done as a matter of course many times over the years as our national debt has grown. Let us be clear about what exactly it means to raise the debt ceiling and why it is necessary. As a nation, we have accumulated $14.3 trillion in debt. This in and of itself is a very bad and dangerous thing. That means our national debt is currently 93 percent of our gross national product. Again, this is a very bad and dangerous thing. We have been in this situation before. Actually, it has been worse. After World War II, our national debt was at 121.7 percent of our gross national product. We certainly had something to show for it. We had won World War II. Through the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, we worked our way to a point where our national debt fell to 32.5 percent of GDP in 1981. We did this through a combination of growth and some inflation. Our debt was in pretty good shape until we hit the 1980s, during which we quadrupled our national debt under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.…”