Political Quotes

“Reclaiming my time, I thank my colleague for pointing out the very important issue of the percentage of debt to the GDP because it is an important issue and our friends across the aisle have created much of that problem along with our President. They have been in charge since January 2007, and that's where the problem comes from. [From the Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2010] The Bush Tax Cuts and the Deficit Myth (By Brian Riedl) President Obama and congressional Democrats are blaming their trillion-dollar budget deficits on the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Letting these tax cuts expire is their answer. Yet the data flatly contradict this ``tax cuts caused the deficits'' narrative. Consider the three most persistent myths: The Bush tax cuts wiped out last decade's budget surpluses. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), for example, has long blamed the tax cuts for having ``taken a $5.6 trillion surplus and turned it into deficits as far as the eye can see.'' That $5.6 trillion surplus never existed. It was a projection by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2001 to cover the next decade. It assumed that late-1990s economic growth and the stockmarket bubble (which had already peaked) would continue forever and generate record-high tax revenues. It assumed no recessions, no terrorist attacks, no wars, no natural disasters, and that all discretionary spending would fall to 1930s levels.…”