On the recordJune 15, 2010
Well, what do we invest in, Congressman Tonko? We invest in our greatest asset in America, and that's our people. We want to invest in our people, workforce retraining, investing in jobs in our economy, putting people back to work. Putting the private interests of our citizens over public interests is what we see, Mr. Speaker, from the other side. They want to put private interests ahead of our good public interest. We've seen the unregulated greed. We've seen what happens when things go unchecked on Wall Street. What we've seen when we've taken office just in the 111th Congress, I mean you and I are both freshmen, and we were handed a $3.5 trillion deficit. The record is very clear. Look at this chart here, Congressman Tonko and Congresswoman Wasswerman Schultz. I mean, the last three Republican Presidents have given us tremendous debt to our Nation. And what we have heard, Mr. Speaker, from the previous speakers on the other side just a short time ago was how the government is out of control and we're spending. Well, look, it was Republican Presidents who were doing the spending. The last surplus that America had was a $5.6 trillion surplus handed over to us by President Clinton.
