Political Quotes

“I was presiding, before the senior Senator from Missouri took my place, and was listening to two of the last three speakers talk about their budget religion, if you will. I think about this. I think we have to look at a little bit of his history. I do not think I need a lecture on balancing a budget. I was in the House of Representatives in the 1990s when, without one Republican vote, we passed President Clinton's budget. We had a huge budget deficit in those days. That budget began us on the path to a balanced budget. I supported a balanced budget amendment in the mid-1990s. By 2000, the year President Clinton left office, we had the biggest budget surplus in American history. Then, in 2001, at the push of President Bush and his Republican colleagues in both Houses, this Congress passed a major tax cut, mostly for the wealthy in 2001; another major tax cut, mostly for the wealthy in 2003, both of which I voted against. President Bush, with intelligence that was not especially sound-- being gentle about it--took us into a war with Iraq, did not pay for it; took us into a war with Afghanistan, did not pay for it. I voted against the war in Iraq. In 2003 or 2004, he pushed through Congress by one vote--I remember I was in the House of Representatives opposing that bill, when they kept the rollcall open for 2 hours or longer that night.…”