Political Quotes

“I served here in the late 1990s, and I recall that Republicans, as the majority party, passed a balanced budget in 1997. In 1998, we had our first balanced budget. Now, President Clinton was President at the time, but I believe I heard someone on the other side say President Clinton left the country with a $5.6 trillion surplus. I think they're mistaken. I think what they meant to say is President Clinton left the United States Government with a $5.6 trillion debt. Now, that debt has increased, but the fact is that when we were in the majority party, for the first time since the 1940s, we produced a balanced budget. The President does not have the power of the purse; the Congress does. We created that surplus. We created the balanced budgets, and there was no surplus left at the end of the Clinton administration. We actually paid down the debt about a half trillion dollars, about $500 billion. That was good work. Things changed pretty dramatically in 2001 when our Nation was attacked. We went to war, we had a recession, and the dot-com bubble burst. But we produced that surplus. We produced those balanced budgets. Not the President of the United States. The Congress. That's where the power of the purse resides.”