Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just want to respond to two arguments my friend from Maryland has made in his remarks and, frankly, made the last 2 days in this debate. First, he says we need a balanced approach. Everyone understands when Democrats talk about a balanced approach, what they mean is raising taxes now and, oh, we promise--and you can count on this promise because it's coming from politicians--we promise we will cut spending later. I would like to point out: If it's so important to raise taxes on the American people and on certain businesses, why in the world didn't the Democrats do this just 24 months ago when they controlled all of government? In fact, they had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate just 24 months ago. If it was so critical, why didn't you do it then? So this balanced approach is not going to fly. The other argument they make is somehow our proposal that Mr. Garrett and his team put together, which I strongly support, that somehow it's going to hurt economic growth. Someone's got to explain to me how getting to balance in 5 years and then beginning to pay off a $16 trillion debt, a debt that is now bigger than our entire economy, bigger than our entire GDP, someone's got to explain to me how that will hurt economic growth. I actually think it will probably prevent a downgrade, unlike last summer. If we'd have adopted this budget last summer, my guess is we wouldn't have gotten a downgrade from S&P.…”