Roy Cooper: “the last point made by my friend from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is entirely true. The House and the Senate have been under…”

“the last point made by my friend from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) is entirely true. The House and the Senate have been under Republican control for some time now. The spending that has occurred on their watch exceeds the highest levels previously in American history, exceeded spending rate of growth under LBJ. It is wrong for them to deny responsibility for the spending surge that has occurred. The Heritage Foundation, the CATO Institute, other conservative Republican think tanks have pointed out the spending explosion has taken place under their watch, under their leadership, with their votes. The vote we are about to cast on the motion to instruct is one of the most important votes that we will cast in this Congress or in many people's careers in this Congress because PAYGO, pay-as-you-go, is one of the most important principles that we have in this body to control spending and to get our deficit under control. This is not a theory. It has worked and worked well beginning with the first President Bush through the Clinton administration to tame budget deficits. But now we are faced with the largest budget deficit in American history. We need that same spending control device. It is not theory. Ask Chairman Greenspan, one of the great economists of our time. He could remember the very day that the previous PAYGO requirement expired, September 30, 2002, because that was a black day in modern American history.”