Roy Cooper: “The gentleman is so correct. And a huge deficit like that hurts our economy. It creates higher interest rates. It hurts…”

“The gentleman is so correct. And a huge deficit like that hurts our economy. It creates higher interest rates. It hurts the employment statistics. And as I think most of the world knows, under the Clinton years we had the most robust economy in the history of this Nation or the history of the world. Surpluses helped us. Fiscal discipline helped us. That is important for us to realize now as we are returning to the era of massive budget deficits. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has displayed great leadership, but I worry so many folks back home find these numbers too large to be comprehended. They are confused. They are over-burdened in their daily lives. They are worried about the war. They are worried about unemployment. They do not know really how to grapple with numbers of this magnitude. But this chart shows it better than anything else, this sea of red ink that we are passing on to the next generation. President Bush mentioned in his State of the Union that each Congress, each President should take care of its own problems, but this budget is not doing that.”