Political Quotes

“In 1995, a Democrat President came before this Congress and proposed deficits as far as the eye could see: the first decade, deficits of $200 billion a year; then $300 billion a year every year after that. We Republicans said that we could do it differently. We said we could make the tough choices, and we enacted a budget resolution in 1995 to say that we would balance the budget in 7 years. We had a little good luck with the economy, I think in large part because of our tax cuts that we gave to the American people, and we were able to balance the budget in half that time. Now, this day, in 2003, we are facing deficits. So what happened between those successful days of surpluses and the budget deficit that we are facing right now? The main thing that happened to our budget to put us back into deficits is, frankly, the terrorist attack of 9-11, 2001. That one event, Mr. Speaker, cost us $80 billion in additional expenditures in one fiscal year alone, and an additional $200 billion, approximately, in lost revenue.”