Political Quotes

“if only what the previous speaker said were true. If only he really cared about a balanced budget. There is an amendment that would require Congress to spend no more money than it collects in taxes, and it has been languishing in this House for 1,560 days. Every day that Dennis Hastert has been Speaker, we have not had one opportunity to vote on a balanced budget amendment. It was written by a Republican, a nice guy by the name of Ernie Istook. His own Speaker will not let us vote on it. But if you guys are as serious as you say you are about a balanced budget, you can walk right over here, you can sign discharge petition number three, and it would force a vote not on my balanced budget amendment, not on Congressman Stenholm's balanced budget amendment but on your colleague Ernest Istook's amendment to balance the budget. Your own guy. Tell your own Speaker you want to vote on your own guy to balance the budget. Let me remind you why you need to do that. Two years ago, May 9, we passed the President's spending plan. The President's tax cuts passed with almost every Republican vote, passed with a couple of Democratic votes. I voted against it. I did not think it would work. It turns out this time I was right. In just over 2 years under that budget passed by you guys, you have increased the national debt by $1 trillion.”